


This Place I Call Home

by SarahC



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:05:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 23,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahC/pseuds/SarahC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when an older and wiser Sansa hears about the Quiet Isle and the Gravedigger, and decides to see for herself if the man who's haunted her dreams for years is alive or dead....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on bits of the books post-ASOIAF but I've diverted from canon a fair bit as you can tell. Rated explicit from Ch 8 onwards then it calms down again. Please let me know what you think. This is my first SanSan and only my 2nd fanfic. Also, I have no beta readers - so please do point out mistakes so I can correct them.

‘That’s it?’ Sansa Stark asks, trying to keep the disappointment hidden. It is nothing but a mound, rising in the mud. There are some trees, scrubby grassland, nothing else. She can see no buildings. ‘That’s the Quiet Isle?’  
‘It is, my lady,’ Brienne replies.  
They have ridden for six days, stopping overnight at inns. It has been hard riding, an exhausting journey. The anticipation of this moment has kept Sansa going, the thought of getting closer with every mile that passes. She had thought, once she saw the Isle, she would know. She would feel something. But there is nothing but an emptiness, a feeling of loss. It feels as if she has come too late.  
Her horse fidgets impatiently. The tide is out, the sea of mud before them reveals what looks like a track across to the island. ‘Do we really need to wait? You can see the road, look,’ she says.  
‘The brother will be here shortly, my lady,’ Brienne answers. ‘Is everything all right?’  
‘Yes, of course,’ Sansa says.  
‘You look a little pale. We can rest here, cross in the morning…’  
‘No, Brienne. We’re here now.’  
As she speaks there is a rustling in the trees to their right; a mule appears, ambling along a narrow path, bearing on its back a brother of indeterminate age. He removes his hood as he approaches them, under it he is bald as an egg, soft blue eyes in a wrinkled brown face. He nods at them.  
‘Brother,’ Brienne says. ‘It is good to see you.’  
‘And you, my lady. I did not expect to see you back so soon.’  
‘I bring with me one who would meet with the Elder Brother,’ she answers. ‘May I present the Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell.’  
Despite the flourish the Brother seems unimpressed.  
‘We should go, if you want to cross tonight,’ he says. ‘The tide will not wait for pleasantries.’  
He turns the mule and sets back off the way he has come. Sansa glances once more at the wide track that appears to lead to the island, then urges her horse to follow. They trace the shoreline for about half a mile, keeping the water and the island to their right. Sansa watches the swaying backside of the mule, the Brother’s bare legs hanging either side of the beast’s flanks. Abruptly, the mule turns sharply towards the shore, and for a hundred paces or more the horses walk on the narrow band of white shingle, the little waves lapping at their fetlocks. Sansa’s horse is not keen on the water. It fidgets and nudges inland. She pulls it back into line but worries about crossing the mud to the island; what if the horse throws her? She’s not been thrown for years, since she was a little girl, but the memory of it is alarming.  
And then the mule halts.  
Sansa’s horse, paying more attention to the water, almost runs into the back of him.  
The Brother has turned to face her.  
‘Did my Lady of Tarth explain the crossing?’  
‘No,’ Sansa says, ‘not really - we cross a particular path?’  
‘You must follow my mule step for step,’ he says. ‘Your horse is true?’  
‘She does not like water,’ Sansa admits.  
‘Will she bolt?’  
‘I don’t think so,’ Sansa says. They have crossed streams on the journey, once even a shallow river. The current had been strong. Her mount had not liked it, but she had crossed safely nonetheless.  
‘We should leave her here,’ Brienne calls. ‘You can cross with me.’  
‘Can we just go? My horse will behave.’  
The Brother gives Brienne a look, but complies. The mule turns and walks straight out into the water. Sansa urges her mare to follow, and after a hefty kick, she does.  
The crossing is strange, but Sansa realises quickly that there is a hidden path, just below the surface of the water. Looking down in the fading light, she can see the blackness of the water either side, and under the horse’s feet a narrow strip of brown. If the horse should take a step or two either side, they would fall in. She stops looking down, concentrates instead on the swaying arse of the mule, holding the reins tight as she can. The island seems to get closer and further away; the path is not direct, but follows curves and bends that make no sense. It feels as if they are going around in circles in the middle of the rising tide of the estuary. And the waves are getting bigger; one breaks over the legs of her horse and she can feel a little skip and a shudder. She holds tight and gasps with fear, but the horse regains her step. Sansa talks to her soothingly. Nearly there, she says, without any real certainty that this is true.  
It is almost dark when the mule reaches a narrow sandy beach, walks up the shore to a track through some trees. They are on the far side of the island, hidden from the main shore. Ahead, through the trees, Sansa can see torches. The trees thin out and they continue to climb to the summit of a low hill. To the right, the graveyard that Brienne had described to her, graves and low tombs in two rows against the sunset. Nobody is there.  
The mule crests the hill and disappears; a moment later, Sansa’s horse joins it, following the path down towards a series of buildings in the small valley. Sansa can make out a dirt yard with a well, a forge, a stable and a barn, series of small cottages, a small sept and a stone building two storeys high adjoining it, with a cloister on two sides of the yard. Behind the cottages, stretching off into the distance, some fields growing corn and wheat, a vegetable patch and a mill. And there are people, too, women with children, a man carrying reeds into one of the houses, a boy leading some horses.  
She looks, and looks. In case he is there. But of course he isn’t.  
The Brother dismounts his mule. A boy steps forward to take the reins, and Sansa slips down from her horse too. She is suddenly, overwhelmingly weary. The boy is young, no older than eight or nine, but he offers her a wide, wondering smile as he takes her horse. Sansa wonders how often they have visitors here.  
‘It is late,’ the Brother says. ‘Come with me to the kitchen, I will ask for some food and wine for you both.’  
‘I will join you shortly, my Lady,’ Brienne adds. ‘I’ll see about finding us somewhere to sleep tonight.’  
The kitchen, below the Great Hall, is warm and dark, only the enormous fireplace still alive with light. It has grown cold since the sun went down and Sansa goes to the fire gratefully, sitting on a wooden bench and warming her hands. A woman brings her a bowl of soup and a hunk of dark bread. Sansa eats both gratefully, watching the flames. The room reminds her of the kitchens at Winterfell.  
The wooden door opens again and the Brother returns, bringing with him another man, taller, wearing robes.  
‘I am the Elder Brother of our Isle,’ the man says. ‘You are welcome here, Lady Stark.’ His voice is melodious, pleasant, and Sansa finds that she instantly trusts him.  
‘Thank you for your kindness,’ Sansa says. ‘And thank you too, for our safe passage here’ she adds to the Brother who is about to leave. He nods, pausing at the door, and then shuts it behind him.  
‘Please,’ the Elder Brother says, ‘sit and continue your meal.’  
‘I should save some for Brienne,’ Sansa says reluctantly.  
‘Brienne has her own meal in the cottage,’ he replies. ‘She has some rooms for you, I will take you there when you have finished.’  
He watches her as she finishes, wiping the last piece of bread around the bowl. It’s not very ladylike, she thinks.  
‘I realise you have had a long journey,’ the Elder Brother says quietly, ‘but forgive me if I ask you now the reason for your visit. And before you speak, I would ask for complete truthfulness. I will keep confidence, but I must have your honest answer.’  
Sansa hadn’t been going to lie, but she was not quite ready to admit the honest truth just yet, not even to herself. For a moment she cannot speak while she thinks, searches inside herself, trying to find the truth that lies buried under so much desire, so much hope, so much circumstance.  
At last she finds the courage. ‘Brienne visited you some months ago,’ she says. ‘When she returned to Winterfell she described a man she had seen on their way back to the shore, one of your Brothers. The way she described him reminded me of a man I knew many years ago, in Kings Landing. I have long believed him to be dead. I felt I had to come here to see for myself.’  
The Elder Brother nods, fixing her with a steady gaze. His eyes are dark, too dark to see any colour there. ‘And what of this man you seek,’ he says calmly. ‘Who is he, and why do you need to know if he is dead or alive?’  
Sansa hesitates. She has not spoken the name to anyone else for so long, it is like a talisman to her. Words whispered late at night in her chamber, naked, wrapped in an old cloak under her bed furs. ‘His name is Sandor Clegane,’ she says. ‘He was sworn shield of Joffrey Baratheon, and he was also known as the Hound. You spoke of him to Brienne. You told her that you had found him mortally wounded at the Trident. You told her you had buried him here.’  
‘All of that is true, Lady Sansa, and therefore you must know that the Hound is dead.’  
The baldness of his words cause Sansa’s stomach to twist; for a terrible moment she feels as if the soup might return.  
‘I would like to see his grave.’  
‘Indeed. Tomorrow, then, you shall see it.’  
‘Will you tell me what happened at the Trident? I should very much like to know.’  
The Elder Brother sits back a little. ‘It’s very late,’ he says, ‘and I believe you could do with sleep to recover from your journey. We can meet again in the morning. Perhaps you will join us in the Sept for morning prayers.’  
Sansa manages a smile. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I'd like that.’  
He stands, and offers a hand to help her to her feet. She accepts, even though she can stand just fine, despite the days spent on the back of a horse.  
They leave the warmth of the kitchen and cross the yard to the cottages. From somewhere Sansa can hear a whistle and a harp, someone singing and the sound of people clapping in time. It all sounds very jolly.  
‘We have many people who come to the Quiet Isle seeking solace, who choose not to leave again,’ he says. ‘The life of a Brother is not for everyone. We turn nobody away who chooses to leave behind a life of violence.’  
They walk past the Hall from which the music is coming, towards three small cottages set a little way back, overlooking the stream that runs behind the buildings down to the mill.  
‘These are for guests,’ he says. ‘If you should choose to remain here, as others do, I would find you somewhere more permanent to live.’  
‘Thank you,’ Sansa says. ‘You have been so kind.’  
‘One more thing,’ he says, holding open the door for her. She can see inside; it is a simple room, a bed, a chair, a table, a small chest and a fireplace which is lit and roaring with warmth.  
‘Yes?’  
‘You didn’t answer my question. Why you seek this man.’  
Surely this does not matter if he is dead, Sansa thinks. But she answers anyway, and she answers honestly. ‘I love him,’ she says. ‘I always did love him.’  
The Elder Brother’s face brightens and he smiles a little. She thinks he is going to say how sorry he is, in that case, that her love is dead. But all he says is ‘Goodnight, Lady Sansa. Sleep well.’


	2. The Gravedigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Quiet Isle's gravedigger is given a job to do...

The big man is late to morning prayers, the way he always is. He has never been any good before breakfast, and rising before the sun is an eternal struggle. He is the last to enter the Sept, and he helps the other tardy brother to shut the doors.  
He slides in to his customary bench at the back, the hood low over his eyes, his head bent, contrite.  
He is contrite.  
The prayers to the Seven begin and he recites along with them, muttering the words that are now familiar but not feeling them. He does not believe he will ever feel them. The Elder Brother tells him that faith takes time, takes its own rhythm, cannot be hurried. The Seven are patient. They will wait for him to find his faith. Patience is something he has never had time for.  
He raises his head slightly to watch the Elder Brother as he leads the prayers, and as he does so he catches sight of two figures he does not recognise a few rows in front of him. A big woman who, even seated, is two heads taller than her companion; the blond, short hair is striking. Beside her, a slight figure in a pale blue cloak, hooded. Guests. They must have arrived last night. He has seen the big woman here before, months ago, but then it was a lad with her, not this girl. He wonders who she is, to have made the pilgrimage twice. Perhaps this time she will stay. The blue cloak looks expensive. It will get dirty here, he thinks. The place is made of mud and wet. Fine clothes spoil quickly. Rich visitors rarely stay.  
The Elder Brother has continued with the regular prayers, and now they are almost at the end; he lifts his voice in the hymn to send them safely through the day. The congregation stands. The Brothers chant and he joins in, as he sometimes does; his voice is a rich baritone. For years he had no cause to sing.  
Now he has no cause not to.  
He opens the doors to the sept and because he was the last one in, he must be the last to leave. He stands opposite the other tardy brother, holding the doors open and keeping his head bowed as the grey cloaks of the brothers, the rough linen skirts and breeches and muddy boots pass. He sees the blue cloak pause for a fraction of a second next to him, and its companion, the black wool of the tall woman, and he raises his head. But they both pass and are swallowed amongst the drab greys and browns. As the breeze lifts the hood of the girl, he sees a lock of red hair escape it, lit by a chilly dawn sun, and something catches at the back of his throat.  
‘Brother.’  
The Elder Brother, the last to leave, lays a hand on his forearm. He has often thought that the Elder Brother would like to rest a hand on his shoulder, a paternalistic gesture that might be more appropriate, but he is too short and cannot reach.  
‘I should like to talk to you. Will you walk with me?’  
‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Gladly.’  
He follows the Elder Brother up the hill, following the track to the graveyard, but his thoughts are still on that lock of red hair, the blue expensive cloak. He looks over his shoulder, searching amongst the residents of the Quiet Isle who are busying themselves to the tasks of the day, but whoever she is, she is gone.  
‘Looking for something?’ the Elder Brother asks, without turning round.  
‘You have guests,’ he answers.  
‘Indeed, they arrived last night.’  
He cannot think of a way to phrase the questions that are troubling him, so he remains silent. The hill, slight as it is, remains a challenge for his damaged leg. He likes to believe it is healed, that he is regaining his strength, but if that’s true it’s taking a bloody long time. They reach the graveyard and the brother is out of breath. From here, the highest point on the Isle, it’s possible to see the mainland; in the distance he can see the hills surrounding the Trident. Beyond that, he knows, is the beginning of the King’s Road. He tries not to think about that. When he is up here, alone, digging, he tries to commit his energies to the task ahead. He tries not to look. He knows there are many reasons why the Elder Brother gave him this particular job here. For one, despite his wound, he is the biggest and strongest and in the bad weather he is the only one able to wield a pickaxe to break up the sodden, icy ground. Additionally, he has seen much of death and he is not disturbed by it. He has no superstitions, no hesitation in handling the diseased and the broken. And then, too, he believes that this view is a constant reminder of where he has come from. The Elder Brother has issued him this challenge, to stand here day after day with the breeze bringing with it the scent of horses and wine, roasting meat and battle, knowing that if he had any lingering desire to be back in that world, he could leave.  
He has not left.  
‘Do you need me to dig?’ he asks.  
‘Not today.’  
He follows the Elder Brother to the end of the row of graves. At the end, the last one, he stops. The grave is marked only with a staff with a few characters notched into it, but he knows whose grave it is well enough.  
‘The lady who visits us wishes to know of The Hound,’ the Elder Brother says. ‘I thought to lead her here, to show her the grave.’  
He cannot answer for a moment. He has not heard that name for a long time.  
‘I should like to show her,’ he says at last. ‘If that would be… acceptable.’  
The Elder Brother turns and heads back up the path. ‘Indeed,’ he says. ‘And afterwards, should you feel the need to discuss matters, you know my door is always open to you. I fear that this might well be… a difficult day for you, Brother.’  
Sandor Clegane remains at the top of the hill, watching the Elder Brother walking steadily back down towards the Sept. He turns briefly to look at the view, the sun now rising in the sky and turning the water golden. The world beyond the Quiet Isle is beautiful, and treacherous. He wonders how long it will be before he has to return to it.


	3. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa has come a long way and waited a long time for this moment

Brienne has found the Isle’s seamstress and, on Sansa’s instructions, has obtained some warmer gowns and cloaks. They are of a rougher material, drab colours and not entirely clean-smelling, but Sansa has tried them on, and, finding them a perfect fit, is overjoyed. She wants to fit in here, she has decided. She wants to belong.  
Outside the cottage, she can hear Brienne talking to someone. She opens the door to find the Elder Brother and her sworn shield chatting away like a pair of old friends. All she can think, for that moment, is how naked Brienne looks without her greatsword.  
‘My Lady,’ the Elder Brother says. ‘I trust you slept well?’  
‘Very well, thank you,’ Sansa replies. It is true. She has not slept so well in years - the cottage was so peaceful, so cosy, it was a struggle to wake up when she heard the bell for morning prayers.   
‘And you have eaten?’  
‘We ate with the others in the Hall,’ Brienne says. ‘They were kind to share their food with us.’  
‘Good, good.’ The Elder Brother casts a significant look towards Brienne.  
‘Lady Brienne, perhaps you could leave me with the Elder Brother for a moment?’ Sansa has tried, in the past, to send Brienne to check on the horses, or fetch something, but the tall warrior does not understand subtlety or discretion. These days, the direct approach works best.  
‘Yesterday, you expressed a wish to see our graveyard,’ the Elder Brother says. He walks a little way and Sansa follows. They cross the yard, where two small boys are sitting in the dirt, polishing a saddle and arguing. ‘Is this a good time?’  
‘Yes, of course,’ Sansa says.   
They are at the track that leads out of the yard, up the hill and towards the shoreline. Next to the track is a small, narrow footpath.  
‘Our gravedigger is waiting at the top,’ the Elder Brother says. ‘He has agreed to show you where we buried the Hound.’  
‘But-’ Sansa starts, and then stops.  
‘Yes?’  
‘Nothing. Nothing.’  
Climbing the hill, lifting her rough skirts out of the way of the mud through force of habit, she thinks of all the questions she has yet to ask. To be climbing the hill to see the grave, to see the gravedigger, feels very sudden. It feels as if she should have worked up to this. In a few moments, she tells herself, she will know for certain, one way or another. After all this time.  
The hill is small but steep, and Sansa is breathless by the time she reaches the top. ‘Oh!’ The view, in the bright cold sunlight, takes her breath away. She shields her eyes from the sun, recovering from the climb, drinking in the distant white snow-covered mountains, the snaking rivers of the Trident, the green forests. She is so distracted by it that it is several moments before she realises she is not alone.  
A single, wind-blown hawthorn tree stands at a ramshackle gate leading into the graveyard, and beside it stands a man, a grey-cloaked brother, hooded so that his face is obscured.  
Sansa sees him and something twists inside her. This is the man Brienne described, she thinks. Tall, wide, strong-looking; walking with a limp. Taking a moment to stroke the small dog which had been running beside them.  
It’s true he’s tall - at least as tall as Sandor, maybe more. And there is something of his stature, perhaps. She had rarely seen Sandor without full armour, so to compare him to this cloaked figure is difficult. And, more to the point, it has been years. She has imagined him every day, but who knows if the picture she carries with her in her mind is now anything like its original?  
‘Good morning, brother,’ she says to the man.  
He nods in response.  
‘Are you sent by the Elder Brother to show me a grave?’ she asks.  
He nods again, holds open the gate for her.  
‘Do you not speak?’  
A single shake of the head.  
Very well, then. She follows the man along the narrow path. He does, indeed, have a pronounced limp on the right side. He should use some sort of stick or crutch, she thinks, and wonders why he does not. Some residual pride, or stubbornness.  
The path ends abruptly and the brother stands aside, his back to the sun, legs spread to give him some stability. In that moment, rooted to the ground, he looks like a warrior preparing to do battle. He indicates the grave with a spread hand.  
‘This is it?’ she asks.  
A single nod.   
It is a simple mound, and she fancies it is longer and wider than the others they have passed. The staff at the end of the mound has nothing but notches.   
‘How do you know?’ she asks.   
The brother does not move. Sansa wonders impatiently at the sense of the Elder Brother giving her this mute to guide the way. Or maybe he is not mute at all, maybe the Elder Brother has instructed him not to answer her questions.  
She kneels in the mud by the side of the mound, rests her hand upon it. She believes that she should feel something, but there is no sadness. Even here, even in this place where the Elder Brother told her he buried the Hound, she can scarcely believe he is gone.  
‘Why do you mourn,’ the brother says, his voice a harsh whisper.  
Sansa looks up in surprise. ‘It’s right to mourn those we have lost to the Stranger,’ she says.  
‘But him,’ he mutters. ‘He was not a good man.’  
‘You knew him?’ she demands.  
The brother nods once more. ‘The Hound was a drunkard, a murderer, a selfish man of the sword.’  
Once upon a time Sansa would have reacted with anger, would have bitten, would have shouted back at the whisper. But she is older, she is wiser. She respects the views of others, even when she doesn’t understand them or agree with them. Instead, she looks intently into the dark space of the hood, and says, ‘The man I knew was kind. He saved my life more than once. And he was my friend. Therefore I choose to mourn him. I’ve come a long way to do that.’  
She looks back at the mound, wishes she had a flower to lay upon it. But then he would probably hate that, wouldn’t he? For the first time, the tears fill her eyes. She wipes at them with the edge of her cloak.  
The brother holds out a hand to help her to her feet. His hands are like shovels, but warm when she puts her hand inside his. ‘Gods,’ he says, aloud for the first time. ‘Don’t start crying about it, girl.’  
He drops his hood back away from his face and Sansa looks, seeing but unseeing, not understanding, wondering if she is now imagining things. Her free hand flutters, shaking, to her open mouth.  
It is true, she thinks. She was right. Sandor is alive.


	4. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor doesn't like surprises, does he? Always takes him a little while to see the good in a situation, even now...

The force of the blue eyes is so intense he has to look away. He drops her hand, lifts the hood of his cloak once more. He sets off back down the path, not bothering to check if she is following.  
‘Sandor, wait!’  
He does not wait, but with his injured leg she manages to catch up with him in just a few strides.  
‘Why did he lie? The Elder Brother, he lied to Brienne, and to me! He said you were dead…’  
He stops at the gate, turns wearily. ‘He did not lie. He told you the Hound was dead. The man you knew in King’s Landing is dead. I am what’s left.’  
She is angry now, he can tell. She feels cheated somehow. She doesn’t understand. No matter; she will. Tomorrow or maybe even later today she will run back to the Eyrie or to Winterfell and he can get back to his normal life and pretend she was never here. He limps down the hill, expecting at any moment to feel her hand on his arm, demanding that he explain, demanding to know why he did it. Why he is here.  
In truth, he cannot answer any of her questions.  
As he reaches the yard he pauses, partly to catch his breath and partly to give her a chance to catch up. She is not behind him. She must be still on the hill, mourning her dead Hound.  
He limps into the main building, climbs the stairs to the Elder Brother’s chamber. Knocks and waits to be admitted.  
‘Brother. Please, sit.’  
Sandor limps to the proffered chair by the fire, eases himself into it. The Elder Brother is waiting for him to speak, seats himself in the adjacent chair. He leans across with the poker and stokes the fire. Ever patient.  
‘I do not know what she is doing here,’ he says.  
The reply does not come immediately. When it does, it takes Sandor by surprise.  
‘Perhaps she has feelings for you.’  
He barks a laugh, coughs, tries to regain his composure.  
‘Why is that such a strange concept to you?’  
‘The man she had feelings for - if that’s what you call it - is dead and buried. She knows nothing about me.’  
Again, the Elder Brother waits. Eventually, fingers steepled, he asks: ‘do you wish me to send her away?’  
Is that what he wants? For her to go away and never return? It would be easier. He is happy here, if that’s the right word. He has never really known, nor understood, happiness. Once there was a time that he thought happiness might lie in a pair of intense blue eyes, the reddest of red hair. But that had ended in a chamber in King’s Landing, the night of the green fire.  
‘She will probably leave,’ he says.   
‘And if she does not?’  
‘Then I will.’


	5. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's not going to be easy. But Sansa has never run from a challenge, has she?

Sansa finds Brienne in the Great Hall, sparring with a small boy and a pair of wooden swords. A crowd has gathered, and there is a sense of risk, a sense of danger, as though something illicit is happening. Sansa understands that fighting, even play fighting, is discouraged here. And yet the people who have made the Quiet Isle their home have come from a world where swords fit into hands the same way boots fit onto feet.  
‘My Lady,’ Brienne says, and the small boy takes the opportunity afforded by the distraction to poke Brienne in the arse. The crowd laughs and cheers.  
Sansa leads Brienne outside, to the yard. The sun is still shining, and, sheltered from the wind, it is almost warm.   
‘My Lady?’  
‘Brienne, I’m going to stay.’   
‘Stay? What do you mean?’  
Sansa raises her eyes to meet Brienne’s. She needs to get this over with, and she needs to keep her resolve. ‘I want you to return to Winterfell, as soon as possible. I don’t care what you tell them - that I’m dead, if it suits you - but do not tell anyone where I am. Say I got lost in the woods and you couldn’t find me. Tell them we got separated. Anything.’  
‘But I am your sworn shield. I cannot leave you.’  
‘I have no need of your services here, as you can see. This is the safest place in the whole of Westeros. They don’t even let the children play with wooden sticks lest they injure themselves.’  
‘I will not leave you behind.’  
Sansa had anticipated this. Brienne is nothing if not fiercely loyal.  
‘You don’t understand - I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I need you to go back, so that they won’t come and look for me. If we both fail to return, soon enough there will be a party of swordsmen from Winterfell and ravens flying all over the place.’  
For a moment the women face each other. Brienne’s jaw is set firm, teeth clenched. Sansa can tell how hard this is for her.  
‘Very well,’ she says, at length. ‘But I will wait at the inn for a month, in case you change your mind.’  
‘A week,’ Sansa says, smiling in response. ‘Wait a week.’  
Brienne nods a short bow, and leaves her to go and ready the horses. Sansa can tell from her gait that she is struggling with this. Well, she shall have to struggle. There is no choice.   
Sandor is here. She has to stay.


	6. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's not good at expressing himself without a sword in his hand - this isn't going well, is it?

Two weeks pass before the Elder Brother summons Sandor to his chamber.  
In that time he has seen Sansa many times. She has moved into one of the houses, the one populated with widows and single destitutes, the penitent whores, the mothers with no children. The big blond warrior, her companion, has gone back to the mainland. Brother Narbert has returned, and the life of the Isle has seemingly settled back into the routine he knows well.   
But she is here.  
He watches her with the women, laughing with them as they gather vegetables; he sees her fetching water from the well, carrying laundry from the wash house into the main hall. She is playing at being poor, he thinks. She is laughing at them all. She will get tired of this, bored, and she will leave. In the mean time, he tends to his duties, takes on physical labour that his injured leg can barely manage, goes to the Sept with the brothers, eats with the brothers, sleeps in his cell, dreams of her.  
As he always has.  
He knocks at the door and the voice from inside bids him enter. At the wooden table in the centre of the room Sansa Stark sits, bolt upright the way she has been taught, looking demurely at her hands, resting palm-up in her lap.  
‘Oh aye,’ Sandor says, coming in. ‘What’s going on?’  
‘Please sit, Brother,’ the Elder Brother says.  
He wants to turn and walk out again, but he is not that man any more. Out of respect, he sits opposite Sansa.  
The Elder Brother walks towards the fire, warming his hands as if nothing is wrong. Sansa raises her eyes slowly, meets his gaze. She does not smile.  
‘Sansa has asked me to accept her formally as a member of our community,’ the Elder Brother says. ‘She wishes to stay here permanently.’  
Sandor takes this in; his gaze never leaving hers.  
‘What does this have to with me?’  
‘Brother, it is clear to me that you are… uncomfortable, shall we say… with Sansa’s presence. Now, forgive me - Sansa may not know you, but I do. I want you two to talk to each other. Now, do you wish to be alone?’  
‘No,’ says Sansa.  
‘No,’ says Sandor.  
The Elder Brother turns to face the fireplace, something of a smile playing on his lips.  
For a long time they sit facing each other.   
Sandor has had a lifetime of this, feigning calm. He can breathe slowly and deeply, unflinching, unblinking, until the moment he chooses to strike. To act. Inside he is in turmoil; the sight of her, all grown up, her hair darker and yet still jewel-red, glowing like a halo around her face. He can smell her, lemons and lavender, the smell he remembers from King’s Landing. After all this time, he would only need to catch a whisper of that scent to know her.  
‘Why are you still here?’ he asks, through gritted teeth.  
Sansa turns to look, quickly, at the back of the Elder Brother. She will get no support from him, Sandor thinks.  
‘The night of the battle,’ she says, her voice surprisingly steady, ‘you came to my chamber in King’s Landing. Do you remember?’  
‘Of course I bloody remember.’  
‘You wanted me to go with you.’  
‘Aye. And I’d had three skins of wine and a bellyful of death.’  
‘But you meant it. Wine or not. Didn’t you?’  
He hesitates, surprised by her vehemence.   
‘Aye.’  
‘I wanted to tell you that I made a mistake. You wanted me to go with you, and I refused. I’ve regretted that decision, every day of my life.’  
He has no reply to that. So, he thinks. So, you should have come with me and you didn’t. Shame. He’s regretted most of his life.  
‘We can none of us change the past,’ he says.  
‘I always hoped you might be somewhere in my future. That I might have another chance.’  
‘Another chance?’ he echoes incredulously. ‘For what, exactly?’  
She stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the tiled floor and rocking on its legs. ‘Gods! Why can you not admit to it, Sandor? Why do you have to be so stubborn?’  
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he replies, his voice cold and dangerously calm.  
She places her hands on the table in front of her, leans forward so that he has to look up into her eyes. ‘Very well,’ she says, ‘I will explain. When we knew each other in King’s Landing, I was a child. I was hundreds of leagues from home, I had seen my father’s head removed and put to rot on a spike. My brother and my mother were murdered, my sister missing, and you were the only one - the only one - who showed me any sort of kindness. I felt safe with you.’  
She straightens, takes hold of the chair and pulls it to the table again, sitting down. ‘When you’re a child, you see things and don’t understand what they mean. It’s only later - years later - when you grow up, that you realise. I married Tyrion Lannister, I was taken from King’s Landing by Petyr Baelish, who assessed my maidenhood and then married me to Harry Hardynge. And I knew then that I loved you, because I never felt for any man the way I felt for you. But more than that, I understood that you protected me all that time, and you did that because you had feelings for me. Didn’t you?’  
Sandor’s mouth has become very dry. He licks his lips, clears his throat and says, slowly, ‘what if I was to tell you I protected you because you reminded me of my sister.’  
Sansa breathes in sharply and leans back in her chair. He can see her thinking that one through. All her careful theories, all the years she has spent working this out, what she will say to him, how he will open his arms to her.  
The Elder Brother clears his throat. Sandor had temporarily forgotten he was there.  
‘Brother,’ he says, ‘I feel that Sansa is being honest and truthful with you. Please show her the courtesy of doing the same.’  
‘What does he mean?’ Sansa asks.  
Sandor leans back, rubbing his hand over his face. ‘He’s talking about when I first came here. I told him everything, my whole life. All that anger. When he told you he’d seen the Hound die, that’s what he meant. Everything I was then, the man who loved killing because it reminded him he was alive, the man who saw you being bullied and kept you from harm, the man who hunted down killed your little sister’s butcher’s boy… that man has gone. The man that’s left does not remember you, Sansa.’  
‘Sandor,’ the Elder Brother says.  
‘I didn’t mean - Gods, why is this so hard?’  
‘It doesn’t need to be,’ Sansa says quietly.   
‘I don’t want to go back,’ he says at last. ‘You remind me of everything I left behind. I was a different man, then. You were in love with someone else.’  
‘We are both different people,’ she says. ‘I am a grown woman, married twice, widowed once. I have Winterfell back. I have my brothers, my lands, my kinsfolk. For a while there was talk of me becoming Queen in the North. Now Bran is ruling, a man grown. I have left my family, my land, the safety of my sworn shield, because I wanted to see you alive and tell you the truth about how I feel. And I feel more than I ever have.’  
‘You should not stay here,’ he says. ‘You should go home, Sansa.’  
The word home has triggered something inside her. He sees tears in her eyes and watches her blink them away.  
‘You are my home,’ she says.  
‘Gods! If you’re staying, then I will leave.’  
‘No!’  
‘This place is not my sanctuary if my past can invade it!’  
‘Brother, please.’ The Elder Brother leaves his place by the fire and approaches the table, across which Sansa and Sandor are staring at each other with defiance. ‘Allow me to intervene. I sense that we are making little progress now.’  
Sandor gives in, sitting back in his chair again and waving his hand in a gesture of surrender. He has fought many, many battles with the Elder Brother over the years. He knows this is not a hill he wants to die on.  
‘May I suggest that nobody leaves the Isle for one week,’ he says. ‘That will give you both time to think about what has been said here, about how you feel now. Sansa, it may be that you will never get the answer you seek. If that’s the case, is your decision to remain here unchanged? Sandor, it may be that you can learn to live alongside Sansa, and it may also be that your feelings have changed, that you need time to realise them. Whatever the case, decisions cannot be made quickly. You both need time.’


	7. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new Sandor, at least, seems to realise when he's overstepped the mark. And he's trying hard to make peace - still can't quite find the right way to say it, though.

Sansa is helping Marisa fold sheets in the laundry when the light from the doorway is blocked by a solid shape. She turns to see Sandor standing there, filling the space. It has been two days since their interview in the Elder Brother’s chamber. She has seen him at morning and evening prayers, briefly, and walked past him once when he was chopping logs. He has not so much cast a glance in her direction.  
But now - without warning - here he is. He is not wearing the grey cloak. She wonders if this means he is preparing to leave.  
Marisa lowers her gaze, glances once at Sansa, and leaves the room.  
Sansa pretends he is not there; continues to fold the washing. To her surprise he joins her, takes Marisa’s place, stretching the linen between them.  
‘I hope you have clean hands,’ she says indignantly.  
‘Cleaner than your laundry,’ he says.  
It’s true; even with all her efforts, the sheets never seem particularly fresh. She smiles at his voice, the memory of his sarcastic replies.  
‘You’re not wearing the cloak anymore,’ she says. ‘Are you turning your back on the Brotherhood as well as me?’  
‘I was never a Brother,’ he says.  
‘But-’  
Sandor shrugs. ‘The cloak was warm. They have… spares.’  
He clears his throat.  
She waits.  
‘I’ve never been good with words,’ he says. ‘You know that.’  
Sansa nods, granting him a small, encouraging smile.  
‘I think I made you feel bad,’ he says. ‘In the Elder Brother’s chamber. I am sorry for it.’  
Gods - did Sandor Clegane just apologise? Sansa is shocked. He has changed. She cannot reply, for a moment.  
‘What you said, all of it, was true.’  
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Are you still going to leave?’  
‘Are you still going to stay?’  
She laughs at him, and he smirks in reply. The laundry folded, he leaves.  
Sansa watches the doorway long after he has left it, imagining the shape of him.


	8. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words clearly aren't working. Sansa decides to act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the smut starts. Brace yourselves, people.

Sansa is not at evening prayers. He has come to expect to see her, he looks for that red hair everywhere; and now he has done the right thing, made peace with her for the things he said to her in the Elder Brother’s chamber, he longs to see her again.   
All through the prayers he is thinking only of her. She might have gone. She might have left. He is expecting to feel relief but what is there is just emptiness.  
He follows the Brothers up the stairs to the cells on the second floor. Every day he tries to ascend the stone staircase a little faster, but he is not convinced that he achieves this. Perhaps he is just getting old.  
His cell is the last in the corridor. By rights, he should be living in the cottages with the other single men, but the Elder Brother has placed him here, out of pity, or a desire to keep him away from the wineskins and the noise of the secular houses , or expectation that one day he will find his faith and take the vows. Either way, Sandor does not care. He sleeps where he sleeps, and up here it is quiet and he is alone.  
Except, tonight, he is not.  
He opens the door to his cell and Sansa is in there.  
‘What the…!’  
She presses an urgent finger to her lips.  
Behind him, he hears Brother Alfred call ‘Brother? What’s the matter?’  
‘Nothing,’ Sandor says. ‘I caught my foot on the door. Good night, Brother.’  
He is standing open-mouthed in the doorway. It takes a flicker of Sansa’s eyes to make him realise the door is still wide open behind him. He gathers himself and shuts the door firmly, latches it shut.  
She takes two full steps towards him, presses her fingertips to his mouth. Keep quiet. Then she replaces her fingers with her lips, and kisses him. He is still too surprised to respond for a moment, then he realises she is on tiptoes, her arm around his neck, trying to pull him lower. He puts his arms around her waist and now, now he knows she is real, made of flesh and bone and not a product of his imagination, he opens his mouth and his tongue finds hers.  
At that moment she pulls away, takes hold of his hand and pulls him to the rough cot in the corner. With a single hand she pushes him to sit. Now she has a small height advantage over him and she uses it, cradling his face in both her hands, kissing him fiercely. He is already aroused beyond anything he has felt in years, his cock straining the laces of his breeches to be freed. And Sansa’s knee, pushing between his, nudging against his crotch. What is she doing?  
And then just as suddenly, she stops and takes a step back. She is breathing fast and hard, wiping her mouth delicately on her sleeve. Her eyes are dark, her expression focused, determined, resolute. He opens his mouth to say something but before he can form the words she is back, shutting him up with a kiss. Each kiss grows harder and more urgent. This time he grips her waist, then one of his hands slide round to her arse, taking a handful of robe and flesh and soft warmth and pulling her closer.   
She loses her balance, or trips over the edge of her gown, and falls against him. He twists and she is lying with her weight on him, and light as she is, her knee presses into the scars on his thigh and he groans into her mouth. She recognises the sound as pain rather than passion and moves her legs either side of his. He slides her skirts up her legs, trying to find flesh and finding nothing but fabric. The frustration is immense. He finds himself twisting his fist into a handful of what feels soft enough to be her smallclothes and pulling at it until something tears.  
Breathing fast, she shakes her head against his and climbs off him. He raises himself on his elbows, afraid he has gone too far, that he has offended her. But she is undressing, fast, pulling her gown over her head and then her underskirts and he wants to help, he wants to unwrap her like a parcel, but not this time. Sansa is in a hurry. She leaves a simple shift and pulls off her smallclothes and then, as she goes to climb astride him again, he finally catches up with her and unlaces his breeches, fingers fumbling over it until she joins in, smacks his hand away, deftly unstrings and opens and reaches inside and…  
His cock springs into her hand. He looks down to see her small white fingers encircling his cock, barely meeting around it. Her eyes are taking it in, her lips parted. Before he can get over the astonishment of what he’s seeing, she drops her head into his lap and takes the head of his cock into her mouth. He throws his head back into the bedfurs at the sensation. And then she licks and kisses and runs her tongue along the shaft, wetting it so that her fingers are slick, rubbing it up and down. He looks down at her, at the tangle of red hair falling over his belly. He touches her head, threading his fingers into her hair.  
He is not going to be able to last long, he thinks. Her grip is surprisingly firm, her stroke deft and rhythmic. Just at the point he thinks he is going to have to throw her off, she stops, and sits on him, her legs either side of his. He looks up at her. She is busy plaiting her hair, the fingers deftly weaving the thick red strands into a single heavy plait that hangs over one shoulder. He pushes his hands up inside her shift, feeling at last nothing but soft warm skin. He lifts the shift out of the way but he cannot hold it up and it falls down again. Sansa makes an impatient noise and pulls the shift up over her head, throwing it behind her into the room. Now he can see her body properly, the curves of her waist, the breasts, small and rounded with delicate pink teats that are begging to be licked and sucked. He reaches for them, cups them with his hands, grazing his thumb across them so that the teats stand proud.  
He looks down her body to the dark russet triangle of hair, and under that his cock flush against his belly, red and bold and desperate to be buried inside her. She begins to move, rotating her hips in slow circles, sliding up and down his cock. He looks up just as she closes her eyes, reaches one hand between their bodies so he can feel her pearl with his thumb, rubbing it gently. She tips her head back, exposing her throat, then just as quickly she grasps him by the wrist and pulls his hand away. She raises her hips away from him, takes hold of his cock and holds it against her cunt.   
He holds his breath. He looks from her hand around his cock up to her face, her eyes - he wants to stop her but can’t. She smiles at him, just a little smile, and then slowly sinks down onto him. She is still holding his hand, and as he fills her she grips his hand tighter still. She is tight around him. It must surely be hurting her. She tips forward onto his chest and he puts his arms around her, holding her still against him. Gods help him, if she moves now it will all be over in seconds. He kisses her hair, the hot damp skin on her forehead, and she lifts her head, kisses him properly.  
As she starts to slide those hips against him again he lets out a low groan into her open mouth. Her fingers press across his lips. Shh, she whispers. Shhh…  
He cannot stand it, delicious as it is, turns onto his side, with her still impaled. Now he can move. Now he can take control. He is face to face with her, those blue eyes, looking into his… the last time they were this close was in her chamber at King’s Landing, and he was about to turn his back on her and walk away. Not this time. He is lying on his bad leg but the pain helps, it makes him realise he is alive and awake and not dreaming this. He moves again so that she is almost on her back. He pulls slowly away until he is nearly free of her, then eases back inside. Her eyes widen and she gasps. Again, he thinks. Slowly, slowly. Her hand reaches behind him, inside the breeches that he is still wearing, sliding over the skin of his backside and then pulling him into her. He gets it. She wants to go faster.  
Somewhere in the building, close by, a door opens and closes. Sandor freezes. Sansa holds her breath. He steals a glance over his shoulder, as if at any moment he expects to see his cell door to fly open and the Elder Brother to demand to know what they are doing. Footsteps in the corridor outside his cell. There is an open grille in the door. If anyone were to stop outside, they would be able to look in and see by the light of the candle that he has not thought to extinguish that Sandor Clegane is balls-deep inside Sansa Stark.  
The thought of this makes him want to laugh out loud. He looks down at Sansa, those big eyes wide with sudden fear. Kisses her gently, for the first time. He has not had time to be gentle but now this is what he wants.  
And the footsteps recede, a door somewhere else opens and closes, and the building once again is silent.  
He moves again, starts slowly, but then she slides a hand into the space between their bodies and he realises she is touching herself. This is what tips him over the edge. He thrusts hard and fast once more, then again, throwing himself deep inside her and spending his seed just at the moment she peaks too. Her knees grip his sides, her feet crossed over his buttocks, holding him inside in case he moves away.  
It’s several minutes before he moves. His cock gradually softens and then slips out of her. She wriggles underneath him until she is on her side, facing him. Her eyes are closed, her hair has half-escaped from its plait and is falling over her face, spilling over his arm. He reaches for her gown, on the floor next to the bed, and uses it to cover her body. He could move properly and pull the bedfurs over them both, but he thinks she may be falling asleep. He wants to say something, to ask for an explanation, to express his amazement, his gratitude, and he clears his throat to speak. Before he can form the words, her fingers once again press against his mouth. Her fingers smell of sex. He kisses them, then takes her index finger into his mouth and sucks it gently until it’s clean. When he lets her hand go, the fingers curl gently against his chest. He strokes the cloud of hair away from her face, breathes in its scent.  
He cannot fall asleep like this, he thinks. He must wait until she’s rested, then help her dress, and escort her back to the cottages.   
He wakes up with a start some hours later, with the bell for morning prayers. He is lying on his bed, fully clothed, his breeches unlaced, a single bedfur thrown over him.   
Sansa has gone.  
He laces the breeches and pulls on the grey cloak, and hurries to the Sept just in time to be the last one there. As has become his daily duty, he closes the oak doors. When the Elder Brother begins to pray, he brings his palms together along with the congregation and raises them to his chin. On his fingers, he can smell Sansa. He opens his eyes and scans the room, but all he can see are brown cloaks, grey cloaks, hoods. And near the front, one hood tipped slightly back, showing an inch or two of neatly combed, freshly washed bright red hair.


	9. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did that really just happen? All she can do now is wait... and plan her next move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter's so short. I thought about expanding it, with Sansa taking some of her new friends into her confidence, but I will save that for an edit. Comments/ideas gratefully accepted.

Sansa spends the day in a daze. She keeps busy so she does not have time to think, helping Dorya in the fields, weeding, hoeing, removing bugs by hand. It’s laborious work, and after an hour or so her back aches; but it takes her mind off the gentle throb between her legs, a constant reminder of what happened last night.  
I’m no good at words, he had said. You know that.  
Very well, she had thought. I’ll show him what we can accomplish without words.  
Even so, she had been shaking with nerves when she waited in his cell. Panya, one of the girls Sansa shares a room with, is tasked with cleaning for the Brothers, and has let slip that Sandor has the last cell in the corridor. He is the only one that brings his linens down to the washhouse to be cleaned. All the others leave it for her.  
Sansa had clucked and sympathised and offered to help.  
They still viewed her with a little suspicion. A high-born lady, slumming it with the prostitutes and the other detritus that had washed up here? What was she doing? But those that had been here longest were the most sympathetic. Prejudice lingered, even here, but eventually it disappeared. There was no point judging your fellow Islanders. It just wasted time.  
Out in the fields, her heavy wool work cloak and the effort of bending and straightening is keeping her warm, but her fingers are frozen by pulling weeds out of the heavy, icy earth.  
He could have thrown her out. He could have called for the Brothers, revealed her as an intruder. He could have just taken his pleasure, brutalised her, then sent her on her way. He did none of those things. Yes, she had taken him by surprise; yes, she had taken advantage of the good nature that she knew he had, had always had. But he had wanted her, too. And he had wanted her pleasure, even when they were both in such a hurry. And even when it was all over, he had covered her to keep her warm, held her close while she slept.  
Sandor.  
Even the breath of his name on her lips makes her smile. There are four days left.   
She intends to make them count.


	10. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, the anticipation...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More smut, folks. He's ready for her this time.

Sandor Clegane is on time for evening prayers, and as such he is able to see Sansa arrive with two of the women from the village, smiling and gossiping and then falling silent as they enter the Sept, raising their hoods as a mark of respect for the Seven and the sacred space.  
He watches her expressionlessly, waiting for her to raise her eyes to meet his, but she does not acknowledge him at all.  
In fact, were it not for the scent of her that he has carried with him all day, he might have begun to suspect that he had imagined everything that happened in his cell last night. How likely was it, after all, for all her protestations of love, that she would boldly miss prayers and hide herself in his cell, where she could have been discovered by anyone? How likely, more to the point, that she would kiss him, unlace his breeches, undress herself in his presence?  
As the cold day turns into an even colder night, he wonders, briefly, if he has been bewitched.  
She is here, anyway, praying in the Sept with the rest of the congregation: she is not lurking in the corridor or hiding in his cell, waiting for him to return.  
Even so, as soon as prayers are finished he goes straight upstairs with the other brethren, almost breaking into a run in the corridor in his haste to see if she is there.  
She is not.  
He undresses quickly down to his under garments and slides between the bedfurs, waiting for them to warm up. If she’s got half a brain she’ll stay in the warmth of her own bedchamber tonight. For a long time he lies awake, listening to the sounds of the building as it settles down for the night. The last of the brothers, the ones who tend to the torches and the lights, make their way to their cells and he hears their doors close. All is quiet.  
Sandor has not intended to fall asleep, but that must have happened because he wakes up when a hand presses itself against his mouth.  
He starts awake.  
‘Shh,’ whispers Sansa.  
He has extinguished the candle but he knows it’s her; he recognises that scent, lemons and lavender. Even as she holds her hand gently against his mouth to stop him shouting out loud, he begins to kiss it, taking her wrist and planting kisses on it, up her arm as far as he can get before he encounters linen and rough wool. Her hands are icy cold.  
He lifts the bedfurs and pulls her inside, folding his arms around her body and pulling her close against him. Her mouth seeks out his, kissing his throat, his chin, his beard, the scars on the side of his face, heedless to them. And he turns to find her mouth, clumsily in the dark, but then invading it when he does.  
This time, he is more prepared. Even newly awake, even taken by surprise in the darkness, he does not intend to waste time fumbling or questioning what is happening. He is wide awake and acutely aware of her. He finds the ties holding her robe closed at her waist and loosens them, pushing the folds of fabric out of the way until he finds just thin cotton against warm, bare skin. Already her hands have untied his small clothes and pushed them down and out of the way. It takes just a few minutes of breathless wriggling and tugging under the furs until they are both naked. And then - oh, then… the feeling he was denied last night. Her naked body against his.  
He wants to touch her everywhere, wants to see - but that, at least, will have to wait. He can’t risk lighting the candle again, and besides, he doesn’t have time. He doesn’t want to waste a second.  
He follows his hands with his mouth, trailing kisses across her body, down to her breasts, taking first one and then the other into his mouth and suckling, teasing, tasting her with his tongue. Her hands clutch at his shoulder, his hair. He kisses her belly, moving his hands down between her legs. She opens them slightly and he slides a finger along her slit. Gods, she is wet already! His finger comes back slick. He sucks on it, lets out a low groan.  
He moves lower, kissing the hair, nuzzling at her. But then she shrinks back, clutching at his arms, pulling him up. He has done something wrong here. He moves back up her body to her face, touches it with his wet fingers. ‘What?’ he whispers.  
He hears her shhh and her fingers again close his mouth. He wants to bite them, frustrated at being denied that which he wants most of all. She shakes her head gently, her fingers closing around his hard cock and pulling him closer, opening her legs to him. That’s it? She just wants to be fucked again? He wants to make her wait, wants to make her see how hard it is to be denied pleasure, but it isn’t long before he can’t help himself, pushing his length all the way inside. He strokes one hand over her arse, across her hip, pulling her knee up to his side so he can go deeper still.  
Sandor wants to stop, wants to give her a chance to catch up, wants to stroke and rub her cunt even if he’s not allowed to taste it, but now he’s here the feeling takes over and he could no more withdraw from her tight hole than he could swim to the mainland. Without meaning to, he thrusts faster and harder, while Sansa’s fingers grip his backside, pulling him closer. Her breasts bounce against his chest and when he hears her gasp there is something in it, something in the momentary loss of control that tips him over the edge.  
This time he manages to pull out as he spends, thinking that making Lady Sansa Stark pregnant is possibly not the most sensible thing he could do. Even if it might be too late to be concerned about such things, even if this was her bright idea, he has at least some sense left in him.  
He spurts into the hot, damp space between their bellies, panting for breath against her neck.  
She has not reached her peak, has not had time. He slides his hand between her thighs and she guides him, her small hand over his, showing him how fast she likes it, how much pressure. He wants to push her hand away, and if they were talking he’d make some sarcastic remark about having been doing this since she was a youngster, he knows his way around a woman’s cunt and how it works. But, thankfully, he must remain silent. And indeed there is something deeply erotic about her slender fingers manipulating his own, sliding into and around her cunt, circling her nub, rubbing fast then pausing, building up to a frenzy until she tenses, pushing his fingers inside her so that he can feel her muscles clenching down, squeezing, pulsing, releasing, and there is a gush of wetness over his hand while she turns her face into his shoulder, her teeth biting down on his bicep to stop herself crying out.  
When her breathing slows and she relaxes, he holds her against his body to keep her warm. He wants to talk, now that he cannot. He wants to tell her of his feelings, his heart, the way he wanted her all along, wanted her so badly he had to go out and kill things just to get rid of the frustration.   
As if she can sense it, Sansa moves her hand over his scarred face and pulls him round so she can kiss him. Long, slow, tender kisses that go on for minutes at at time, till her lips feel swollen and yet he can’t stop himself kissing her again. Her tongue teases, withdraws, plays, circles; her teeth nip at his bottom lip.  
When he opens his eyes again there is a thin greyish light in the room; dawn is not far away.   
He does nothing to alert her - Gods, he does not want this to end yet - but still she sits up quite suddenly, pulls her gown from where it has been discarded, half buried under his legs, and begins to dress. He reaches for her back with his hand, tracing his finger down her spine just before she covers it and stands up. In the dim light he sees the swirl of her cloak as she pulls it around her body, raising her hood to hide away the glow of her coppery hair.  
Then she turns back to the bed, plants one last kiss on his mouth, and leaves.


	11. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa needs a bit of time to decide if her plan is working...

In the Great Hall, the inhabitants of the Quiet Isle are enjoying the main meal of the day. Work has ended, the light is fading outside and it is the turn of the Brothers to serve the villagers their meal. Sansa has learned that their is a rota system, meaning that different groups take turns to serve and clear, reminding everyone of the need for a generosity of spirit, fellowship and care-taking of your fellow men.  
Everyone likes it most, however, when the Brothers are serving, because it means extra wine is served and there is the opportunity for food to be eaten while it is still piping hot, filling cold bellies and easing tired muscles.  
Meanwhile Sansa is watching Sandor, who is serving stew on the next table. He keeps looking at her.  
The mood at Sansa’s table is jolly; tomorrow is the feast of the Maiden. Back in King’s Landing, the Maiden’s feast day heralded much excitement; new clothes, plenty of wine and strong ale, a goat to roast and singing and dancing afterwards, followed by inevitable debauchery among those for whom the thought of a Maiden was primarily concerning the challenge. Here on the Quiet Isle, Donya has explained, celebrations are much more low-key: there will be extra prayers and hymns to the Maiden, beginning with a procession at dawn up the hill. Gifts and offerings will be made in the Sept, and after a day spent mostly in prayer, the Brothers will spend the evening in solitary contemplation. They don’t mind that so much, Panya adds, and we don’t either because they turn a blind eye to the singing and dancing that takes place in the village hall.  
Sansa wonders where Sandor will fit in, given that he inhabits both the world of the Brothers and the world of the villagers, and is not especially comfortable in either.  
In any case, she is not planning to visit him tonight. For one thing, he may have to be up before dawn for this procession, whatever it involves; for another, she is exhausted. Staying awake for so much of the night, the adrenalin caused by sneaking around in the dark, followed by the deep desire to fall asleep in Sandor’s arms, has taken its toll. Tonight, she will sleep.  
See what he thinks about that.  
She is leaving the Hall, a pace or two behind Panya, when a grey cloaked arm shoots out and grabs her. Sandor pulls her into the shadows to the side of the building. Sansa gasps with shock.  
‘What?’ she asks.  
He is so close to her she thinks for a moment that he means to kiss her.  
‘Why did you make me stop?’ he demands, his voice an urgent whisper.  
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she replies haughtily.  
‘Don’t play games. You know what I’m talking about.’  
If he could see her face clearly, if it wasn’t quite so dark, he would know that she is blushing deeply. To be reminded - in public, even though there is nobody close enough to hear - of something so personal, is almost humiliating. Still, the thought of it, his hot breath on her damp thighs, his kiss, the tickle of his beard against her skin, the way his nose nuzzled against her most private place, is arousing and Sansa finds herself wondering if she might actually change her mind about visiting.  
‘Why?’ he says again.  
‘I-I need my voice for that,’ she says.  
She twists out of his grip and gathers her skirts, hurries to catch up with her friends. Glances behind her, meets his eyes, just once.


	12. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's lying awake, waiting for her... poor man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken massive liberties with the idea of the feast and the religious rituals here. I confess I'm still reading the books, having skipped to the Sansa/Sandor chapters, so I'm sure there are details I could have used and haven't. Apologies to those who know about these things, and bear with me, this is my first attempt.

Sandor Clegane waits in his chamber for the woman he loves.  
He still has not named it as such, but it doesn’t stop him feeling it. Not a word between them, except ones of reproach.  
Tonight, he is going to say something. He is going to whisper the words into her mouth, into the quiet space between them, before she can stop him speaking with her cool, soft fingers.   
The house grows silent quickly, all tasks completed ready for the morning. Sandor listens, waiting to hear soft footsteps outside, waiting for his door to open and close.  
But she does not come. He thinks about going to find her. He wonders whether she has been caught, whether one of the villagers has seen her sneaking out, cloaked, and has sent her back to the cottage. He wonders, briefly, if she was so offended by his words outside the Hall that she has changed her mind about him - that she is punishing him, somehow, for failing her.  
Hours later, Sandor is shaken awake and for a moment he thinks it’s her - he smiles, opens his eyes, and sees Brother Albert standing over him with a candle.  
‘Blessed be the Maiden,’ says Brother Albert.  
Sandor groans and falls back into the furs.  
He is dressed and on the summit of the hill, holding aloft the beacon because he is the only one strong enough to keep it steady when there’s a wind, waiting for the Elder Brother to hurry up with the chanting and the praying. The other brothers, all hooded, stand in a rough circle on the uneven ground, hands tucked into cloaks against the bitter wind. Sandor’s hands are otherwise engaged holding up the beacon and as a result they are frozen to the bone.  
As if the cold and the early start are not enough of a trial, Sandor feels like he has had very little sleep, and even having his rest disturbed on the two previous nights, he knows which he would prefer: lying awake, alone, or lying awake with a naked Sansa Stark snuggled against him. No contest.  
It’s too cloudy to see the sun rise, more’s the pity; there is nothing but cloud and then a slightly lighter cloud to indicate that Maiden’s Day has dawned. The Elder Brother brings the prayers to a close, raises his hands in salute of the sunshine that isn’t there, and then they can all trudge back down the hill and have breakfast.  
The villagers are just rising; the baker first, the groom and the milkmaids. There will be fresh bread for the villagers, in an hour or so. The Brothers and Sandor Clegane will have to make do with yesterday’s bread, stale and hard and likely to test the strength of his teeth unless he can soak it in some warm milk. He is hungry enough not to care; and if he can get away with it, he will head down to the village once the Brothers have finished in the Sept, see if there’s any leftovers.  
In the Hall, Sansa is clearing the tables with two other girls. The other girls are dancing while they are doing it, adding a twirl for every three paces, and Sansa is watching and clapping a rhythm. Sandor watches all the hilarity for a few moments before any of them notice him.  
‘And what do you want?’ the youngest, a girl he knows is called Tasha, says to him. ‘As if I need ask.’  
He gives her a fierce look which does not seem to fool any of them, except for Sansa, who is staring at him, her expression unreadable.  
‘Sit down,’ Emilya says. ‘I’ll get you some broth.’  
‘And bread,’ Sandor says, pulling out the bench that Sansa has just neatly tucked under the table.  
Tasha takes armfuls of dirty plates out to the washroom. Sansa is still standing rooted to the spot. Then she seems to collect herself and begins to stack plates on the last uncleared table.  
‘Good morning,’ he says.  
‘How was the procession?’ she asks.  
‘Cold,’ he says. ‘And too early.’  
‘Blessed be the Maiden.’  
‘Aye, and her breakfast.’  
Emilya returns with a hunk of brown bread, roughly torn, and a bowl of steaming porridge, puts both down in front of Sandor. He tears off a piece of the bread and dips it into the porridge, paying Sansa no heed. For a moment she is reminded of the Hound, the rough way he behaved when anyone else was there. As if he had a part to play, the fearsome beast, as if he couldn’t let the mask slip.  
‘Still here?’ he asks, without turning round.  
‘You reminded me of someone,’ she says quietly.  
He looks up at her, his eyes dark. Sansa watches Emilya cross the room with some more plates. For a moment, they are alone.   
‘Have I disappointed you, Lady Stark?’  
And she smiles at him, a quick, wide smile. ‘Not yet,’ she says.   
Then she takes the last few plates out to the washroom and he is alone in the hall, alone with just his bread and bowl and the scent of lemon and lavender lingering like the ghost of the woman he loves.


	13. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sansa finds her voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More smut. This is the last chapter for now - please let me know what you think. I have some ideas of how to finish this, but this is as far as I've got and it's hard to carry on without some feedback. I hope you liked it. I love these two and I have been so inspired with the works here, so I hope I might be able to join the SanSan party.

The Hall is warm and humid, full of laughter and music. Sansa hugs herself with glee, borne aloft with the joy of belonging to such a merry company. The benches and tables have been pushed to the edges of the room, the fire at one end of the Hall is roaring with flames and in front of it, on the spit, the goat is roasting ready for their feast. They have started early with the festivities, as soon as the Brothers have gone to the Sept for their meditations, and although it’s only mid afternoon many of them are already pink-cheeked and full of wine.  
There has been no sign of Sandor.   
Sansa believes he has chosen to celebrate Maiden’s Day with the Brothers, and she wonders briefly if her presence has somehow brought him to an awareness of his faith. She would not deny him that. In fact, as long as it means he will stay on the Isle and allow her to stay too, she doesn’t care if he takes his vows tomorrow.  
She stands at the edge of the gathering and watches, clapping her hands and tapping her feet, while the younger members of the community dance a reel. There is much laughter when the dancing speeds up and some lad slips and falls, tripping the baker’s lad and resulting in a minor pile up.  
‘Not dancing, Little Bird?’  
The voice in her ear, that name she hasn’t heard for so many years… she spins on her heel to find Sandor Clegane standing at her shoulder, wearing his tunic and shirt and breeches, but no cloak.   
‘You’ve forsaken your Brothers again?’  
‘They’re busy chanting and all of that shit. They have no need of me to hold anything up.’  
‘So you thought you’d come and join in the dancing?’  
‘Fuck that.’  
He leans close to her ear and murmurs, ‘I had something different in mind.’  
He takes hold of her hand and leads her out of the door, down the path and away from the village. Already the sound of the music and laughter is fading, leaving behind it just a ringing in her ears. He is not hurried - he cannot, not with his wounded leg - but still she allows him to lead her.  
‘Where are we going?’ she asks.  
He does not answer. They are heading for the woods that ring the Isle. Beyond the trees, if they go far enough, they will eventually get to the shingle beach and the water’s edge. The path narrows and he lets go of her hand, so that they can continue single file with her following. She doesn’t mind. It gives her a chance to look at him, at the size of the man, so much taller than her, broader, his thighs strong and muscled, his shoulders wide and strong.  
The trees close around them; it’s darker here. Sansa realises they are following the path of the millstream downhill, she can hear the chattering of the water over rocks, and then Sandor pushes his way through some branches and they are in a small clearing. The sun is setting over the waters of the Trident, which she can see through the remaining trees. They are close to the shoreline. The millstream flattens out over sand, and at the edges of the water thick moss is growing. It’s a beautiful place.  
Without warning Sandor turns, takes hold of Sansa’s upper arms, and pushes her firmly back until she feels a thick treetrunk behind her. He is close. He pushes the weight of his body against her. She can feel the hard muscles through his shirt, and the hard lump of his engorged cock pressing under her ribs.  
‘Can you hear anything?’ he asks quietly.  
There is birdsong, the sound of the water, but nothing else.  
‘Quiet, here, right?’  
She nods, unable to speak.  
‘You know why I brought you here?’ he asks, and at last he brushes his lips against hers.   
Her body is burning with desire for him; she squeezes her thighs together with anticipation over what he might be planning. Her legs are unsteady at the thought of it, and he allows her to sink down slightly onto the moss. As she does so, he slides his hand up her leg, and pulls up her skirts, bunching them at her waist. And then he drops to his knees in front of her.  
‘You need your voice for this,’ he says, untying her smallclothes and pulling them down, lifting one of her feet to slip them off entirely. ‘You have your voice. Scream your head off, if you need to.’  
And he kisses her there.  
Gods, he knows what he is doing, he thinks; he starts slow, tasting, sliding his tongue around her folds and not quite reaching the core of it, stroking her cunt with one gentle finger before pushing it slowly inside. As she feels him twist his finger inside her, curling around, she throws her head back and gasps, out loud, the involuntary sound taking her by surprise.  
She opens her eyes and looks above her head to the tree trunk soaring up to the bare branches and the clouds overhead, imagines what she must look like, were there someone watching from the shoreline; Sansa Stark backed against a tree, her legs bare and spread wide, exposing her proud high-born cunt for Sandor Clegane to tongue and pleasure. And this giant of a man, kneeling before her, one hand teasing her, the other supporting her thigh lest she lose her balance - she looks down, then, and as she touches his head with her trembling hand he looks up and she sees the look on his face. His beard is already glistening with her wetness. The sight of that, his dark grey eyes full of desire and concentration.  
Now he has seen the look on her face he changes pace, concentrating with his tongue on the hard centre of her desire. As he moves faster with his tongue, changing the pressure too, he pushes a second finger inside and spreads her wide. From inside she feels a sound bubbling up and escaping from her lips; it starts as a groan, a growl, low and otherworldly, then it rises into a wail and she throws her head back against the rough bark of the tree as the waves of her pleasure hit her hard. He feels it - he must do, surely, and rides the wave with her, matching the pulses of her cunt with pressure from his fingers and his tongue.  
Her shout dies out and ends on a sob.   
He catches her just as her legs give way, taking her in his arms. Her skirts fall down around her ankles. She clings to him, breathless, while he kisses her damp forehead and strokes her hair out of her eyes.  
‘Why did you not come to me last night?’ he asks.  
She is confused for a moment, still overwhelmed with the power of what has just happened. When Harry tongued her, and it didn’t happen often, she found she was only able to peak if she was able to cry out when it happened. But even so, even on those few occasions when they were alone and there was nobody who could hear, she has never released like that. It has left her feeling emotional, vulnerable, muddled, out of sorts.  
‘I-I was tired,’ she mumbles.  
He barks a laugh. ‘I waited hours for you,’ he says.  
She is recovering now, thinks this is highly amusing. The thought of Sandor Clegane lying in his bed, waiting for her. She snakes a hand around his neck and whispers into his ear, ‘did you take yourself in hand, thinking of me?’  
He laughs harder, planting tickly beard kisses along the line of her jaw. ‘No, I did not… I fell asleep.’  
‘So much for waiting hours. You expect a lot, after two nights.’  
He takes a step back from her, retrieving her smallclothes from a small gorse bush over which they have been draped. ‘Two nights, Little Bird? It’s been years.’  
Yes, she thinks, pulling him close to her again, burying her face into his chest, it’s been years, years of their lives wasted. And now? There are just a couple of days left. He may yet decide to leave. The Elder Brother may yet decide to send her away, to leave Sandor Clegane to the peace of the Quiet Isle. Sandor may decide to take his vows and join the Brothers, after all.  
So much still remains uncertain, even with his kiss deepening, his tongue moving across hers, his breath in her mouth. And she thinks he is trying to speak, trying to whisper something that she cannot quite catch… she tries to break away so that she can hear him, ask him what he’s saying, but then she gets lost in the kiss and can think of nothing else but the sensation of him, the desire rising from her core once again, so that she takes hold of his hand and pushes it against her sex, and then that’s not enough either, she has to let go of his hand and make a grab for his breeches, trying to pull the laces away while she gasps, freeing his cock while he lifts her skirts again, lifts her back against the tree for support and pushes himself into her in one smooth movement… and she wraps her legs around his waist, her arms holding him tightly around his neck while he drives himself into her, fucking her hard and fast because after all that build up it’s what they both need more than anything else…   
When he reaches his peak he roars like a bull, dropping his head against her throat and grazing his teeth against her skin. She can feel his heartbeat pounding against her neck, then without warning he withdraws from her and laces his breeches.  
She feels bereft, empty, hollow, now that he has left her. Her skirts slide down her legs. He picks up her smallclothes again that have been discarded twice now, holds them out for her to step into, fastening the ties. She can feel his seed running down the inside of her thigh. It feels, suddenly, as if he is leaving her altogether.  
He says nothing else, waits for her to collect herself, then leads her back up the path towards the village. As they get closer she can hear the music, the shouting, and she can smell the roast meat. It makes her tummy rumble.  
‘I don’t know why they have to do that to a goat,’ Sandor says gruffly, without turning round. ‘It’s not as if they have run out of chickens.’


	14. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sansa gets to burn off some energy and Sandor gets to watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've left this for so long; the ideas have been there, but I've been tied up with other projects. Hoping to get the next few chapters done now. Comments very welcome!

The Hall is full of music and laughter. Sansa was snatched away almost immediately by two girls, friends of hers he supposes, into a swirl of dancing. The long tables and chairs have been cleared to the edges of the hall, where some of the older women are clearing away plates. At the far end of the hall, in the darkness where the glow of the firelight doesn’t reach, he can see bodies seated on the benches.   
It’s only when he gets there, dodging dancers and sliding sideways past the musicians and the people clapping and stamping their feet, that he realises those sitting at the back are in pairs.  
No matter. He doesn’t give a fuck what they’re up to. It’s too dark to see much, anyway, just the movement of bodies. He sits down heavily next to a man with a girl straddling his lap. They don’t notice, or in any case they don’t care either.  
He only has eyes for Sansa Stark, spinning and whirling in the middle of the hall, her hair flying in a fiery arc around her. She is smiling and laughing and utterly beautiful. He wants to get himself a wineskin, but right now he can still taste her. He wants to hold on to that as long as possible.  
She is looking for something, or someone, and pulls away from the group, peering around the room. He knows, he feels it in a place deep and primal, that she is looking for him. The thought is intense and arousing, and he enjoys it. While he could raise his hand, he could go over to her, he wants to watch her a while longer. And then, just as she was nearly upon him, she is caught by the hand once again and pulled into the throng.  
He can wait. He reaches across the table and finds a bone that some fool has left; half a goat still attached to it. He chews, watching Sansa, losing sight of her in the crowds. When a girl passes with wineskins, he takes one.  
‘You should be in the Sept, brother!’ the girl laughs.  
‘I’m no brother,’ he growls. ‘As you know well enough.’  
She stops in front of him, hand on hip. She is blocking his view, her ample chest right in his line of sight.   
‘Aye, I know you, Brother Sandor. How come you’re mixing with the likes of us tonight? Getting friendlier, at last?’  
He wants to push her out of the way. Her pillowy breasts do nothing for him.  
The girl looks to Sandor’s right, where the couple who were just kissing are now fucking each other, judging by the rocking of the bench and the grunting.  
‘Are you lonely over here? Want some company?’  
‘No,’ he says.  
‘Aw,’ she says, undeterred, hips swaying. ‘I don’t mind. It’s dark back here. I can’t even see your scars, you know.’  
‘It’s still no.’  
‘I gave you a wineskin,’ she wheedles.  
‘Have it back,’ he says, holding it out.  
She turns to follow his gaze past her waist to the dancers. Turns back. ‘Oh! I get it. You’re hard for the Lady of Winterfell? Our high born Lady Sansa? Have you had any success with your endeavour?’  
The temptation to tell her is strong.  
Undeterred, she moves closer, nudging against his good thigh with her knee. ‘I bet you’re hard now, aren’t you? Hm? Watching her dance?’  
He is, of course he is.  
‘Shame to let a good cockstand go to waste, isn’t it?’  
Without asking she settles herself on his lap, letting out a little mew of excitement when she finds that he is, indeed, hard.  
Abruptly, he stands, throwing her off. She lands in a heap at his feet.  
‘No need for that! Fucking hell, you big brute!’  
‘I told you nicely,’ he says in response.  
The girl grumbles and shuffles off, leaving the wineskins behind. Sansa is still dancing.  
Sandor opens the first wineskin, and drinks it down in a matter of seconds. The couple beside him finish what they are doing, and after a few minutes they get up and join in with the dancing. Sandor admires their energy. The wine has finished him off and he finds his eyes have grown heavy.  
He smells her even before he opens his eyes again, feels the breath of her skirts against his hot skin. After all this time on the Isle, her scent is less of lavender and more of laundry soap, but he finds he loves that even more. With his eyes still closed he reaches out into the space he imagines she occupies; gathers her close to him. He hears her giggle and then he opens his eyes.  
She is warm and damp and fragrant with the efforts of her dancing. He pulls her onto his lap and she tucks her head into his neck.  
‘Will you not dance, Sandor?’  
‘No,’ he replies. ‘I like to watch you.’  
‘I can’t remember how long it’s been since I danced. A long time. It felt good.’  
‘Dancing, and singing, tonight,’ he says, squeezing her thigh. ‘That felt good too. Good to hear it.’  
She smirks at this.  
‘Will you share my bed tonight?’ he asks. He has to ask, cannot help himself.  
‘No,’ she murmurs.  
‘Why not?’  
He can hear the desperation in his own voice. Is this what he’s come to? Begging a girl for attention? It’s wrong, he thinks.   
‘Because it’s morning already,’ Sansa says.  
He looks towards the doorway. The music has all but stopped, one lone fiddler picking out a slower tune. The hall is clearing, people dispersing back to their beds. And she is right; grey daylight is showing through the door, and when the music finally stops he can hear the chirping of the birds, the real ones, outside.


	15. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the Feast, Sansa gets some bad news....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! I guess it goes to show that we all have very different ideas about how the future should pan out for our beloved characters, right? I am setting things up for a dramatic time for them....

Sansa finds her eyes closing during prayers in the Sept. She is bone tired, having had about an hour’s sleep before the bell rang; she had dressed quickly, washed her face and combed and plaited her hair, not wanting to appear anything less than devout.  
Pity so few others feel the need to give thanks for the glorious morning, she thinks, looking round once again. The doors closed without Sandor; he must have slept through the bell. No matter. She will tell him off, later. The thought of it makes her smile, and then she chides herself for thinking such things here, in the Sept. She bows her head again and concentrates.  
Prayers over, Sansa leaves the Sept with Marisa, looking forward to breakfast.  
‘My lady Sansa.’  
Sansa turns to see the Elder Brother behind her. He is not smiling.  
‘Would you share breakfast in my rooms? I need to speak with you.’  
‘Of course,’ Sansa says. She waves Marisa on ahead.  
The Elder brother does not speak as they climb the stairs to his solar. Sansa’s legs ache from all the dancing yesterday, and she wonders if it would be possible to go back to bed after she has completed her chores. A sudden thought occurs to her - that someone might have observed them in the woods yesterday. Her cheeks grow hot at the prospect of having to explain herself to the Elder Brother. Surely he would not put her in such a difficult position?  
In the chamber the Elder Brother offers her a seat beside the fire.  
‘A raven came with a message from Winterfell,’ he says, without further preamble. ‘For you.’  
He hands her the parchment and she unrolls it. It is from Brienne.

My Lady,  
Your brothers wish for you to return to Winterfell immediately. I am permitted to send a raven but I have not told them of your whereabouts. I will ride to meet you and wait for you in Maidenpool. I am sorry to say this; I believe there is no choice in the matter for either of us.  
Brienne

Sansa remains silent for a moment, reads the message twice, then hands it to the Elder Brother.  
‘May I?’ he asks.  
‘Of course,’ she answers tonelessly.  
She feels cold to her bones, as if drenched in the icy waters of the Trident. She has to leave. She already knows it. Why does it feel so terrible, to go home?  
Minutes pass. Sansa still cannot move. She stares into the fireplace, wondering what can have happened, that her brothers require her return and will threaten her friend in order to get her to comply. For that is the meaning of the message, isn’t it? 

_...There is no choice...._

She should feel angry, but she feels nothing. Hollow, desolate, empty.  
‘If you wish to leave, I would advise that you do it as soon as possible. The weather is turning. If you don’t leave by noon there may not be another opportunity for several days.’  
Sansa feels his hand on her shoulder.  
‘My Lady.’  
‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘Yes. I’ll go straight away.’  
‘I’ll get some boys to help ready your horse, and alert the Brother to guide you to the shore.’  
He leaves her alone beside the fire, and that’s when it hits her. The tears fall. She can cry here, alone, for a few moments, and then she will find her strength again and do what needs to be done.


	16. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which he gets things a bit wrong... again

When Sandor opens his eyes, the room is bright. He closes his eyes almost immediately with a groan. He rarely sees the sun in his chamber; he is out of it from dawn to dusk. He squints enough to see the small square of sunlight on the floor beside the bed.  
He must have missed morning prayers.  
Since the first day his leg was healed enough to bear weight, he has not missed prayers in the Sept. Sandor feels the weight of shame heavy upon him as he struggles upright. His blood in his head beats hot and hard, almost bad enough to make him lie down again. A wave of nausea hits him. He swallows, waits for it to pass.  
He has not drunk wine for years. The Elder Brother was right - it does him no good. He had forgotten this feeling, or maybe he has denied it, all this time.   
Cold water, some of it drunk and the rest of the bucket doused over his head, wakes him up a little even if it does not soothe his aching head. Only time will do that; time, sleep, a good meal to soak up some of the sourness. He wanders over to the Hall to see if there is any food left; thinking that a chicken would do the trick, or some bread, or even some porridge would suffice if nothing else is available.   
His mind is so occupied with the need to fill his belly that he does not notice what’s going on in the yard before he stumbles upon it. Then he sees, but does not fully comprehend; finally the sight of flame red tresses being hooded by a blue travelling cloak hits him like a second bucket of water.  
Sandor crosses the yard until he is standing next to her. The horse - a bay mare - is being saddled and loaded with a bag of provisions.  
‘Look at me,’ he says.  
Sansa raises her head. He can tell she has been crying, but she is not crying now. Her eyes are flint-steel, cold determination.  
‘A raven came,’ she says, ‘from Winterfell. I have to go back.’  
Mere days ago, he heard her say that she wanted to live on the Quiet Isle. His opinion was sought in the matter. He thinks about this, and about her visiting his chamber, about her kissing his face and tucking her head into his neck - last night, in fact just a few hours ago, and now… this? Now, she is leaving?  
‘Why?’  
For several seconds she holds his gaze, her mouth slightly open. She looks lost, dazed. It occurs to him that she, too, has had very little sleep.  
‘Sansa!’   
His raised voice startles her. Sansa’s eyes widen and she shrinks back for a moment, then quickly recovers, sets her mouth in a firm line.  
‘I’ll come back,’ she says. ‘I need to go to Winterfell to explain. They only have Brienne’s word that I’m here of my own free will. They don’t understand. When I see them, when they see I’m fine, I’ll come back and then I’ll stay.’  
‘I’ll come with you,’ he says. ‘You can’t go alone…’  
‘No.’  
Sandor looks up, briefly, aware of eyes on him. They are attracting an audience, a curious circle of onlookers. Entertainment is hard to come by on the Quiet Isle; an altercation between the Gravedigger and the Lady is certainly worth a closer look. He takes hold of her upper arm and steers her away from them, down the path to the cottages. They won’t follow; they wouldn’t dare.  
‘Let go,’ she says, pulling her arm away. But she does not run back to the yard.  
‘I will not let you make that journey alone,’ he says again.  
He thinks she wants to smile, to laugh, but there is no hint of it on her face.  
‘I won’t be alone,’ she responds. ‘Brienne is meeting me in Maidenpool.’  
Sandor clenches his teeth together to stop himself shouting at her again. She’d prefer the big blonde woman, to him? Now he wants to laugh.   
Only for a moment. In his head, for a moment, he was a warrior; he could ride beside her, he could defend her, he could keep her safe. But as the sun goes behind a cloud, he sees himself through her eyes; he is nothing but a toothless old dog, good for nothing but digging. What good is he, now? He can barely walk without limping. He cannot run, he could possibly still swing a sword, but he has not lifted one for years. Who knows if he could defend her? No wonder she doesn’t want to take the risk.  
Without another word he turns on his heel and heads towards the Hall.   
Let her go, then, he thinks. Let her go.  
She will not return. He knows it already.  
‘Sandor!’  
He hears her cry, but does not listen.  
Does not look back.


	17. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa heads North, all the while wishing she could have stayed behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm honoured by every comment and I hope that I can continue to improve as I go along.

Sansa arrives at the Inn in Maidenpool just before dusk. The Brother has accompanied her all the way into town, refusing to leave her on the shores of the Trident, even though his duty towards her ended there.  
The crossing of the water had been terrifying, a strong wind causing the water to whip against the mare’s legs in foamy brown waves. The mule ahead looked unsteady, nervous, which made Sansa nervous too. When, finally, her mount found solid ground once again, Sansa’s hands were white and numb from gripping the reins. Still, it meant she had not had time to think. Not had a moment to change her mind.  
Not until now.  
Sansa manages a smile as she thanks the Brother for his kindness.  
‘I wish you a safe onward journey, my Lady,’ he says, bowing his head.  
‘And my return,’ she says. ‘I will come back.’  
He smiles, showing small white teeth in his sunburned face. ‘I hope so,’ he says.  
‘Please tell the Elder Brother. And anyone else who asks - I intend to be gone no more than a month. That’s all.’  
‘May the Gods bring you safely to our shores again, then.’  
With that, he takes his leave. Standing outside the Inn, watching the arse of the mule she has followed for the past few hours swaying back towards the path leading to the water’s edge, it takes all her strength not to mount her horse again and demand to be taken back. She watches until she cannot see him any more, and then it’s too late in any case.  
Brienne is already at the Inn, waiting for her. A meal is prepared and brought to the rooms and it’s only when Sansa has eaten and drunk that she realises how exhausted she is. Dancing all last night, it feels a lifetime ago. Brienne has been talking, but Sansa is only half aware of what she has said. In the end, Brienne gives up and withdraws to the room next door. 

In the morning the two women set off early. The weather is cold but bright, and Brienne has acquired an extra cloak and fur-lined gloves for Sansa, which she will need before they head further North.  
‘It’s been snowing,’ Brienne says. ‘Lots of snow. I’ve never seen anything like it.’  
‘Winter is coming,’ Sansa says automatically.  
‘That’s better. I was beginning to wonder if you had taken a vow of silence on the holy island.’  
Sansa manages a hesitant smile. ‘They don’t call it the Quiet Isle for nothing, Brienne.’  
She expected that with every mile that passed, it would get easier to bear, but so far that has not been the case. All she can think of is Sandor, his face when he realised she was leaving. The way he looked at her when she told him she did not need his protection, and she saw the flash of hurt in his eyes. She would rather have sliced into her own arm than deliberately cause him pain, but there, it was done now and there was no going back on it. When he had walked away, hiding his limp in a fashion that showed her more clearly than words could have the depths of his pain, she had wanted to run after him.  
Even now, half a day closer to Winterfell, she wants to turn back.  
But what if she had followed him, into the Hall? What could she have said? He would have tried to persuade her to stay. Or, failing that, he would have tried to persuade her to let him go with her.  
_I’m trying to keep you safe_ , she says in her head, trying to will the thought from her mind into his.  
While he remains safely dead and buried on the Quiet Isle, none can harm him. Were he to cross the Trident, he would instantly be a target; whoever committed the atrocities on the Saltpans, wearing his Hound’s Helm, he has conveniently been left to take the blame. She is not the only one who always believed he was still alive. If he were to have ridden with her, a big, dark-haired man with a scarred face, it would not have been long before he would have been called to account for someone else’s crimes. That’s if they would have let him answer at all.  
_Don’t you understand? I couldn’t let you come with me..._  
He didn’t give her the chance to explain, of course. He saw the rejection and it hurt; and rather than show the pain, he had walked away. Torn her in two, by doing it.  
There is no point fretting over it any longer. Sandor is safe, on the Isle. The Elder Brother will take care of him. And she _will_ go back, no matter what. If he never speaks to her again, at least he will still be there. At least he will still be alive.  
Sansa lifts her chin. She can smell snow on the wind.  
‘Tell me what’s been going on,’ she says to Brienne. ‘Talk to me of Winterfell.’


	18. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she left him behind....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised I posted the wrong chapter earlier! I'll have to add a couple here and then re-order them... oops.

For the first few hours, he is distracted enough to convince himself that he doesn’t care. Besides anything else, he’s exhausted after so little sleep, hungover from the wine - even so little of it, these days it doesn’t take much. He sits in the Hall and watches the doorway with an occasional desultory glance, half expecting her to return at any moment.  
It feels like she’s playing games. He is not prepared to play.  
By evening, he is so tired that he feels numb, as though he has been ill and is just beginning to recover, weak, stunned, still a little feverish. The Elder Brother watches him closely. Sandor can feel the cool blue eyes boring into the side of his head, but he refuses to make eye contact. Nothing is the matter. Life is returning to normal, that’s all.  
Despite the exhaustion, sleep proves elusive. The numbness has evolved into anger, that begins as petulance - how could she, just when things were starting to go well for them both? - and develops into a full-blown, sweating, teeth-grinding rage.  
Let her go running back to them, he thinks. Grown up she may be, but she hasn’t changed at all. She’s still their little pet, their little toy, coming the minute she’s called, singing the right notes. He used to think he could help her find her courage, her spirit; the guts to stand up for herself.   
He was wrong.  
He lies in his bed, in his cell - the place where just a few nights ago he was fucking her - and seethes. So much for her wanting to stay! It look one raven - one! And she wasn’t even going to say anything. She was just going to go, to cross to the mainland without so much as a goodbye.  
Now the memory is there again and he can’t stop it. Lying on his back, watching her moving over him, his hands sliding up her leg, under her shift, feeling the bare skin there for the first time…  
He groans.  
The numbness was easier to deal with.


	19. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way home... Brienne is explaining what she's missed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry, I missed out this chapter. I'll re-order them now. Hope it makes sense.

Brienne has been talking for hours. All the talk of Winterfell; the rebuilding, the wildlings fleeing the skirmishes north of the Wall, the bannermen coming from the South. The whole of Westeros is bracing itself for more conflict. Winterfell has become a focus - men and horses and swords gathering to arm themselves, rest and eat.   
And the two boys in the middle of it all. They are men, her brothers, yet she still thinks of them as boys; Bran scrambling over the walls like a mountain goat; Jon and Robb teaching Rickon to wield a wooden sword.  
‘Lord Brandon is more thoughtful, cautious; he listens to advice and considers everything before he will act,’ Brienne says. ‘Lord Rickon is more impulsive, he wants to ride out and take the advantage while it is to be had. They are both right, that’s the thing; if only there was some meeting point between them, the North would have a formidable leader.’  
‘Bran is the elder,’ Sansa murmurs. ‘He should lead.’  
‘He wants to. His judgment is right, always right - he never makes a mistake. But it takes him a long time to decide.’  
‘I’m surprised he lets Rickon have a say,’ Sansa says. The elder of the brothers should rule, shouldn’t he? Why are they arguing? She does not fully understand, or maybe it’s just tiredness that’s preventing her making sense of it all.  
‘They are ruling together. It was their decision.’  
‘Why do they need me? Surely they don’t need someone else to confuse things.’  
‘I think they hope you can be a mediator…’  
Somewhere deep in the forest ahead of them, some animal lets out a cry. It startles the horses, briefly, and Brienne reaches for the reins of Sansa’s mount in case the mare is about to bolt.   
‘We should make haste,’ Brienne says, ‘if we are to reach the Twins by nightfall.’  
Sansa would prefer to ride through the night and avoid the Twins altogether, but she has little choice in the matter. Brienne is in charge of their safety, and despite the murderous history of the location, it is still safer to spend the night in the shelter of its walls than to risk a night in the open.  
The cry has made her think of Sandor. She wonders if he has forgiven her yet.  
Of course, he hasn’t.   
He won’t.   
She will return to him and to his anger, eventually, and will have to work to bring him back to her all over again.


	20. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Sansa left behind.... and how he copes without her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the notes - I'm sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this. I have a couple more chapters in the bag now so I will upload them once I've had a read through and an edit, in the next few days. It's going to be Sandor's POV for the next while.... all will become clear, eventually.....
> 
> *Edit* I realised I posted this chapter in the wrong order, so if you read it earlier please just check you haven't missed the last two. They should be in the right order now. Thank youuuuu!

The anger lasts a long time.  
The weather turns colder but that does not cool his rage. He manages the fury as best he can, on the hillside, digging grave after grave for those of the Isle who have not yet died. When he has dug six in a row to the full, proper depth and deeper, the ground freezes solid and he is forced to stop. His hands are raw with it anyway, bloody with blisters and mercifully numb with the cold.  
After that he goes to the woods and chops the fallen branches for firewood. When he can no longer find any branches he fells a tree and chops that instead, taking the green wood load by load to the side of the Hall where it can dry out.  
The object of all this activity is so that when he returns to his cell each night he sleeps without dreaming.  
That first night he dreamed of her, following him through the trees on the Maiden’s Day, trusting him, to the mossy bank where she lifted her skirts and he parted her thighs and ran his tongue over her soft skin, grazing her with his beard, feeling her lips swell with hot blood, slowing down so that she wouldn’t peak too soon, building her up again gradually again and again until that moment she released and cried out. In his dream, it was like a wail; echoing, tuneful, glorious - a song for his ears only, his reward. Walking back he was holding her hand, telling her that he loved her, but she wasn’t listening to him. It was as if he was speaking underwater, shouting, for her to be smiling to herself and not hearing him. The dream was so real he woke up and for a moment he could taste her.  
He refuses to dream of her again.  
The graves are not needed, but he digs anyway.  
It is not his job to chop wood, but he does it nevertheless.  
He speaks to nobody, asks no permission. He has not been back to the Sept since she left and the Elder Brother has not spoken to him of it; in fact he has not spoken to him at all. Sandor has retreated into a world of physical labour and the Brothers have let him do it.  
The feelings do not go away, despite the hard work; they remain, festering in his chest like a wound, sitting in his throat like a lump of stale bread he cannot manage to swallow. More than once he has stood on the shoreline, looking across the rolling, choppy waters of the Trident towards the north, thinking of how quickly he could cross, if he had to. Thinking that if he drowned while trying, it would be no bad way to go.  
Late, when all the Brothers are already asleep, he slinks back to his cell and falls asleep without undressing.  
In the morning, he wakes to the sound of the bell calling the Isle to prayers, but waits until the doors of the Sept are closed before he emerges. He takes bread from the kitchens, sometimes a chicken if he can find one, and drinks water straight from the well. Then he goes to the hillside and digs, if he can; or to the woods with the axe, if he cannot.  
Days pass without him speaking a word.  
One day he wakes and the light in his cell is different; brighter, colder. Outside it is snowing heavily. He feels strange, shivery, and when he goes to take the axe he is almost too weak to lift it. Nevertheless he goes to the woods, stumbles through the snow looking for things to chop, balancing the axe on one aching shoulder. The woods are silent. The birds are gone, the animals asleep, just the whisper of the snow falling on the dead ground to remind him that he is alive. He sits down to rest beside the brook that is barely running a trickle under a glassy carapace. It would be easy to sleep, he thinks, and he realises with a sudden surprise that he is no longer angry. He is too tired to be angry any more.  
‘Sandor.’  
He turns his head to see the Elder Brother on the path. Sandor had not heard him following and wants to say this, but it has been so long it feels as if he has forgotten how to speak.  
Then he realises that Sansa is standing next to the Elder Brother on the path, wearing her blue travelling cloak, and he realises he is dreaming after all.


	21. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has overdone things again... but it's only in the moments he is laid low that he can admit to the truth.

‘Sandor.’  
His eyes open a crack and then he coughs, painfully, a low rumble in his chest. The pain spreads to his ribs.  
‘Drink this.’  
A cup of water is held up to his lips. He drinks some, chokes, the water spilling over his chin and down onto his chest. He is lying down, in bed. The Elder Brother is with him. He recognises the chamber, the room that was once the Maester’s cell, back when the Isle had a Maester. This is the room he was in when he was first brought to the Isle, a lifetime ago. His mind flits around from one thought to another, grasping at realities only to have them slip past him. Maybe he has dreamed the whole thing.   
He lifts his leg slightly, tests it; that, at least, doesn’t hurt.  
He tries to sit but finds he cannot; his strength is gone.  
‘Steady, my friend,’ the Elder Brother says. ‘It’s good to have you awake again, at least. Don’t overdo it.’  
Sandor opens his mouth and closes it again.  
‘We found you in the woods.’  
Sandor manages to nod. That was it, then. He must have fallen asleep out there.  
‘How do you feel?’  
He tries to respond, fails, then manages a croak. ‘Good.’  
The Elder Brother barks a laugh. ‘I’ll send you back out to dig a grave, then, shall I?’  
‘If you have need,’ Sandor mutters.  
‘We have no need. We have six graves ready for any that require them. I was beginning to wonder if you’d be needing one yourself.’  
Sandor breathes in, coughs again, manages: ‘…not… yet.’  
‘Good. I’m glad.’  
The Elder Brother crosses the room to stand by the fire. Sandor turns his head to watch, wanting to ask a thousand questions of this man and finding them all too much effort.  
‘I believe she will return,’ the Elder Brother says, without turning round.  
There is no need to ask who he is referring to. Sandor lets out a grunt that can be interpreted any way the Elder Brother chooses.  
‘I know you doubt her, that you are angry. But you see, that just proves how important she is to you. Doesn’t it?’  
Sandor closes his eyes.  
‘You deny it, you fight it by half-killing yourself out there. If you didn’t care for her, you would have gone back to your life as it was before she arrived and been no less happy for it. Your reaction to her leaving tells me that you want her to return. You need her to return.’  
‘She has no need of me,’ he murmurs, his voice rasping. He coughs again. ‘Why would she bother to come back, when she left so quickly? Without a care?’  
The Elder Brother does not answer at once. He turns and crosses to Sandor’s bedside again, presses a warm hand to his shoulder. ‘Rest,’ he says. ‘When she comes back you will see that she had no choice. I hope you will give her a chance to explain.’  
‘When? Don’t you mean if?’ Sandor asks, but the Elder Brother pretends not to hear. He leaves him alone, shutting the door behind him, and Sandor closes his eyes again.


	22. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's getting impatient now.... Sansa's been gone AGES

A week later there is a brief let up in the weather; the sun shines, and the snow in the yard melts a little. Sandor has managed to get up and has made it to the Sept for morning prayers. Outside the sun on the snow is dazzling. He wonders what it’s like further North, whether Sansa has been held back by the weather. It would be difficult to travel in blizzards, even with a good horse. His few days in the Maester’s chamber has given him a chance to think. He is no longer angry - that much is good - but the bile in his throat has been replaced with a hollow, echoing emptiness that is almost as bad. He finds it impossible not to think of her now he has started. He goes over each of their meetings, what he said, what she said, and muddles everything up so that he can no longer be certain of anything he said. He had got it wrong, anyway, hadn’t he? He made a mess of it all. He should have been honest with her from the start, should have told her that she was right, yes, she was completely right; he loved her from the minute he saw her, standing in the yard at Winterfell by her brother’s side - even though she was still a child. Even though her eyes were fixed on Joffrey and she never once so much as glanced in his direction.   
He couldn’t have called it that, had no reason to think that’s what it was that he felt.   
It was a need to protect her, at all costs. To keep her safe.   
He had no idea why, back then. It was only years later - only, in fact, when he was confronted by the adult Sansa in the Elder Brother’s chamber, blue eyes flashing, demanding that he admit that he had feelings for her - that was when he realised that’s what it was.  
Love.  
The thought of it makes him want to laugh.  
And her sister, the wolf-bitch Arya - squatting there, watching him die slowly by the side of the road - what was it he’d said to her, trying to persuade her to run him through with her Needle?   
‘Your pretty little sister - I should have fucked her bloody, the night the Blackwater burned…’  
He’d said it to shock her, to provoke her into acting on her fantasies about killing everyone on her stupid list. The pain was making him lose his head, begging a girl to kill him. But even churning with pain, his first thought had been of Sansa. He’d gone to her chamber, not with that intention - he’d never have hurt her, never - but surrounded by death he’d wanted to see her, one last time. And what if she’d agreed? What if he’d hidden her in his cloak, and escaped with her through the Mud Gate on Stranger’s back? What would have happened? She would have been terrified, scared witless. And they wouldn’t have got far.  
He knew that, even drunk on wine and blood.   
That’s why he left her behind.


	23. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sandor comes to make a decision.

A month, that’s what she told the Brother who’d guided her back to Maidenpool.   
A month has passed and more, he can count as well as any of them, even if some of that time has been spent unconscious or delirious in the Maester’s chamber. The weather is cold and dry, snow on the ground but no more has fallen. It may well be worse further north but not bad enough to stop someone making a journey they promised to make.  
Sandor has spent an hour every day standing by the shore, looking out across the water. He comes here after morning prayers, a second ritual with just as much religious meaning for him as the first. He doesn’t know what it is he expects to see; after all, if she returns a raven will come from Maidenpool, asking for a brother to bring her safely across the water.   
She will not turn up unannounced.  
This fact does not stop him going to the shoreline to wait.  
Today, though, he heads to the Elder Brother’s chamber when he returns from the shore. The Elder Brother welcomes him in, offers him a seat by the fire, waits for him to speak. Sandor is grateful for this and for everything, and thinks for a moment that he should express this gratitude more often; but he has something more pressing to say.  
‘I want to ride for Winterfell.’  
The Elder Brother regards him steadily, as if he is not in any way surprised. He nods, presses his fingertips together. Waits for more.  
‘I need a horse. Passage across the water. Will you allow me those two things?’  
A brief frown crosses the Elder Brother’s face. Sandor thinks he will refuse, braces himself for the argument that will inevitably follow.  
‘I will give you those two things if you will allow me one condition in return,’ the Elder Brother says slowly.  
‘What?’  
‘You will ride with three other Brothers, more if I can find willing volunteers. You will not go alone.’  
‘I can manage…’ Sandor begins, but the Elder Brother interrupts.  
‘Lady Sansa wanted you to remain here for your own safety. You are too recognisable to travel without attracting attention. Hooded, in the company of Brothers, you will be at least a little safer. Do you consent?’  
Sandor thinks. ‘It will put the Brothers in danger. I don’t want that.’  
‘They will take the risk for you, Sandor. You may not realise it, but you are highly thought of here.’  
For a moment Sandor cannot find the right words to reply. He thinks of everything he will leave behind, here, and what he might find when - if - he gets to Winterfell. What the journey might cost; whether he will ever return.  
‘When can I leave?’ he asks, eventually.


	24. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa has been busy at Winterfell...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this scene needs some more detail about what Sansa has been up to since she left the Quiet Isle. Your thoughts are much appreciated. I love the idea of the three Stark children together being the perfect ruler of Winterfell, but none of them capable of managing on their own. Which, of course, makes the course of my story run less smoothly, but hey....

‘My Lady.’  
‘What is it, Dana?’  
‘My Lords request you join them.’  
Sansa puts down the book she has been staring at but not reading; one of the Maester’s. In truth she does not have time to read. This morning she was up before it was light, as she has been every day, helping organise the latest arrivals to Winterfell. They are rapidly running out of provisions, not to mention space. Bran and Rickon are incapable of reaching a decision on anything that counts - the only way to achieve anything has been to take over. A few snatched moments of reading in peace - or pretending to - is preferable to another slanging match between her brothers, with her as the referee.   
‘What is it this time?’  
‘Visitors, my lady. From the Quiet Isle.’

Sansa picks up her long, heavy skirts and breaks into a run when she turns the corner and finally nobody is watching. Please let it be him, she thinks, at the same time terrified that it might not be. What if something has happened to him? The Elder Brother would send a raven, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t send a messenger with ill news…?  
The door to the solar is standing open and she can hear laughter inside. Brandon is in his chair at the head of the table, bolt upright as he always is, feet placed neatly together as if at any moment he will get to his feet to make an important point. Which of course he will not. Cannot. His dark hair falls over his eyes, his skin pale. She doesn’t often see him smile, but now he is smiling.  
Rickon, one foot on the seat next to Bran’s, hand on his knee, as if he’s in the act of telling some hilarious joke.  
Other than the pair of them, Maester Jordyn is sitting to Rickon’s left, ignoring them all. Guards at the door.   
‘What’s going on?’  
‘Nothing,’ Rickon says. ‘Come sit with us.’  
‘Dana said there were visitors?’  
‘Some brothers from the Quiet Isle, asking for you,’ Brandon says.  
‘What brothers? Where are they?’  
Both Bran and Rickon focus their attention on her, sensing something is up.   
Brandon speaks first. ‘Four of them, I think. We sent them to the kitchens to get food and water. They will join us presently. You’ll want to speak with them?’  
Sansa does not reply. What if it’s him? What if it’s not him? She is not sure she can trust herself to speak in either case. Sandor Clegane has not often been out of her thoughts over the past few weeks, although she has had little time to herself. There has been so much to do here. She has not stopped wanting to go back. But the more time that passes, the more she has wondered whether, really, it is the right thing to do. He never once told her he loved her. True, he went along with it - when she went to his chamber that night and kissed him, he didn’t exactly object… but he didn’t respond as she had hoped he would. He didn’t want her there, not really.   
But as she left - that moment when he wanted to come with her… surely that meant he did care?  
Well, then, he cared.   
But that’s not the same thing as love.  
And the weeks have passed and Sansa has talked herself into this corner: Sandor might well be attracted to her, especially when she appears in his chamber at night and offers herself to him. He might well be concerned about what happens to her. But love?   
No. It has been a delusion on her part, hasn’t it? A fantasy.  
And to go back… it could be a mistake. It might not be the right thing for either of them, to keep fighting for something that simply isn’t there.  
‘I’ll stay silent,’ she says at last.  
Bran raises an eyebrow. ‘Why? You’ve not gone shy all of a sudden, Sansa?’  
‘It’s not that. It’s just - I want to hear what they have to say.’  
Rickon takes his foot off the chair to let her sit. ‘And what do you want from us?’  
She shrugs. ‘I’ll leave it up to you. I’m sure you’ll think of something, if you need to.’  
‘Do you think it’s the man you’re in love with?’ Rickon asks.  
Not for the first time, Sansa regrets saying anything about it, even though she never told them his name. Despite their repeated demands to know. They caught her in an unguarded moment, two days after she arrived home, weeping in her chamber. She fobbed them off with vague comments, half-truths, but they have brought it up more than once as if they are expecting her to run back to him, this man, whoever he is. She has had to reassure them. She will not leave until they are ready to manage Winterfell without her.  
‘No. Not if it’s the Brothers,’ she says, unable to keep the sadness out of her voice. ‘He was never one of them. He never took their vows.’


	25. Sandor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Great Hall at Winterfell, Sandor and Sansa are reunited - they just have a small matter to work out first....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the scene I've been working up to for a long time, and it feels like a good place to end things for now. If I get some good ideas, I might write a part 2 and see what happens to them next. For one thing, I can't decide if they need to stay in Winterfell or go back to the Quiet Isle, or maybe go somewhere else entirely. 
> 
> Thank you for all your kind comments, it's been such a thrill to receive them. I hope you like what I've done here and please do let me know what you think (and what I might do for part 2...)

The Great Hall at Winterfell, the room now used for meetings of the Council of the North, has been completely rebuilt since Sandor Clegane was last here. The approach is down a long corridor lit by high arched windows overlooking the yard, making the most of the weak winter sunshine. Lanterns overhead give off a little extra cheer. At the end of the corridor, doors are open onto a wide, high hall with the council table at the far end. It is plain, unadorned, giving off the sense that the priority is solid construction to withstand what the winter - and the armies of the South - can throw at the keep. There is no money or taste in the North for fripperies and decoration.  
The walls echo with the sound of chisels on stone outside, a percussion that has been all around them since the moment they arrived. The whole place is in a state of flux; construction, destruction, all of it carrying on while the snow whirls and settles and the light fades - and amongst all the chaos, riders coming and going, warriors, refugees, the hungry, the cold, arriving at Winterfell seeking shelter, seeking a leader to follow, seeking an army to join. He had expected to find the place in some measure of disarray - but this is something else.  
Sandor has left most of his companions in the kitchens, assuring them that he will meet with them as soon as he has completed his business with the Starks. They will rest in whatever overcrowded shelter Winterfell can offer them overnight, then tomorrow they will head back towards the Isle.   
In the kitchens, the Brothers were reluctant to let him out of their sight - one of them especially, Brother Albert, insisted on accompanying him to the Council Chamber. Sandor found that he was too tired to argue.  
So it is not one but two cloaked figures who enter the Hall through the doors and approach the platform at the far end of the Hall.  
There are armed guards at the doors. As he gets closer, Sandor can see that Brandon and Rickon - grown men now, though he can cast his mind back easily enough and still see them as children, not all that long ago - are wearing daggers at their belts.  
Sandor wonders whether Brandon ever gets a chance to use his.  
One cripple, one hot-headed youth, two guards and a girl - in years past this would have presented no challenge at all to Sandor. But now, here, unarmed and unfit, he feels that the odds are against him. If they should choose to take him on, he has already lost. If he loses, then his companions, the Brothers, will likely lose their lives as well. A high price to pay for a whim. It had better be worth it.  
To Bran’s left, Sansa is sitting upright, her skirts neatly arranged, feet together, head up. She looks in control, commanding even. The only sign that betrays her is her hands, gripping the arms of the chair as if it’s about to tip over.  
He and Brother Albert bow their heads to show their respect to the Council. Or what remains of it.  
It’s clear they do not recognise him. Hooded, wearing the cloak of the Brothers of the Isle, even head and shoulders taller than any man in the room it’s obvious - unless he removes his hood, they will not realise who he is. That’s if they even remember.  
Sansa, however, knows him immediately - from his size and his gait, no doubt. Hooded or not, her eyes have remained fixed on him since the doors opened. Her lips slightly parted, her eyes widening, her chest rising and falling faster than it should. You’re giving yourself away, girl, he thinks. Careful now.  
‘Brothers,’ Lord Rickon Stark says, rising to his feet briefly. ‘You are welcome here. What is your purpose in visiting us?’  
Brother Albert takes a small, deliberate step back.   
This is it, then. He removes his hood, reveals his face to them.  
At first there is no reaction; the sounds of the stoneworkings outside continue, rhythmic as a beating heart. Otherwise, there is silence. Rickon waits for a response. Sansa stares.   
Then Brandon speaks: ‘You’re Sandor Clegane. I remember you.’  
‘Who?’ Rickon asks. ‘Who is he?’  
‘He’s the brother of the Mountain Who Rides. He was Joffrey Baratheon’s sworn shield.’ Bran’s tone is calm, measured, and Sandor takes note of the fact that he makes no suggestion that Rickon was too young to remember. By doing so he has not diminished his brother.  
‘A Lannister, then?’ Rickon says. His tone is instantly more aggressive; the Lannisters are not their friends.  
Sandor looks to Sansa, wondering if she is going to say something, but her lips are now tightly closed, set in a firm line. Her eyes are on him. Why does she not speak?  
‘No longer, my Lord,’ Sandor says. ‘Not for many years.’ He spreads his hands, as if to demonstrate that he is unarmed, and no threat to them.  
‘And what is your business?’ Rickon asks again.  
Sandor looks at Sansa. ‘I wish to speak with your sister.’  
Rickon laughs, a short, sharp sound like a bark. ‘Speak with her then,’ he says. ‘Here she is.’  
‘In private.’  
Now it’s Bran’s turn. This is how they work, Sandor thinks - Bran is the clever one, the one who thinks, sees things, listens; Rickon acts, where Bran cannot. That’s why there’s two of them. Like two sides of the same coin.  
‘Anything you wish to say to Sansa,’ Bran says, ‘you can say in front of us.’  
Not fucking likely, he thinks.  
He turns to go, and would walk out of the chamber with no further discussion, but two things prevent him. The first is Brother Albert, who raises his head and steps neatly to the side to block his path; the second is Rickon Stark, who asks a question so shocking that he has no choice but to stop in his tracks.  
‘Wait. We would hear of the Quiet Isle. My sister is hoping you’ve brought her a message from the man she loves. Is that what you want to talk to her about?’  
Sandor turns slowly back towards them. He half expects the boys to be laughing, but they are not. She told them? He cannot believe it. But then… they’re expecting a message. As if he is just a messenger. They don’t know, then, after all. Not the whole of it, anyway.  
Sansa’s head is down, her eyes in her lap. As he looks at her she lifts her head and he gets the full force of those blue eyes once again. There is urgency in her expression, as if she wants to communicate something important. Without words.   
Rickon speaks again. ‘She won’t tell us who he is,’ he says. ‘She won’t say why.’  
Sandor clears his throat, feeling something like relief wash over him. ‘That’s because it’s her business,’ he says, ‘and not yours.’  
‘But you bring no message from him?’  
‘Nobody asked me to come. I’m here for my own reasons.’  
‘Which you won’t share with us.’  
Sandor doesn’t answer. It’s not a question.  
‘This man,’ Brandon says, pausing for a moment as if considering his words, ‘this man of the Isle who my sister loves - do you know him?’  
Sansa’s head has dropped again. Sandor fancies he can see a single tear rolling down her cheek. Is she afraid of them? Is that why she won’t speak? He looks to Brandon, frowns and shrugs.   
‘Maybe. I know everyone on the Isle. I couldn’t say.’  
‘There was nobody in particular Sansa was close to?’  
This is fucking tortuous! He wants to end it now, this little game that the boys are playing. They are hurting her, deliberately it seems. He hates them for it. But if they want to play - then he will spar with them. He has no sword, but his wits are as sharp as they ever were. _Bring it on_ , he thinks. _Fucking dare you._  
‘My Lady,’ he says, raising his voice a little to make sure she’s listening, ‘is it the man you sang for at the Maiden’s Day feast?’  
Sansa looks at him, her cheeks colouring. Her eyes are dry, after all. She nods, slowly. There is something of a smile, a ghost of a smile, on her lips as if she has heard a snatch of a refrain or a felt the touch of a memory on her sleeve.  
Sandor nods to show he has understood. Very well, then. He turns to Brandon.  
‘I know him.’  
Rickon smiles with glee, as if uncovering his sister’s secret life is the best sport he’s had for weeks. ‘What manner of man is he?’  
Sandor pauses. He will say nothing in haste, any more. ‘A man very much like you or I,’ he responds.  
‘What sort of answer is that?’ Rickon says petulantly. ‘Is he honourable?’  
Behind him, Brother Albert coughs and lowers his hood to join in with the jape. ‘I find him a very honourable man, my Lords,’ he says. That offering placed before them, he steps back again and lifts his hood.   
Sandor wants to laugh at the crazy path this conversation is taking.  
‘I don’t believe he can be honourable,’ Bran murmurs. ‘If he were, he would come to us and ask for Sansa’s hand in marriage. Therefore I do not think his intentions towards her can be good. Perhaps he is married already?’  
‘No,’ Sandor says, too quickly - and then adds, ‘I don’t think so.’  
‘Perhaps he does not love Sansa as much as she loves him?’  
He cannot answer for a second, thinks of a way to tell them without giving himself away. I love her more, he thinks. More than I can even explain. ‘He is a man. You both know that men are not good at expressing such things. Doesn’t mean they don’t feel them.’  
‘Do you think he would be a worthy match for our beloved sister?’ Brandon asks.  
Now Sandor has to think. Again, this is a question he does not feel in any way qualified to answer. In the end, his guts churning at the very thought of it, he manages to say: ‘My Lords, I don’t believe there is a man alive who is worthy of your sister.’  
Rickon guffaws at this, but Brandon merely smiles. Sansa looks at them both crossly, then returns her gaze to Sandor. Sooner or later, he thinks, she will say something. She will speak up for herself.  
Bran tries again: ‘What if Sansa were your sister? Would you permit her to wed him?’  
Dear Gods! Sansa - his sister? This is getting worse, he thinks. He looks from one to the other sourly, not missing out the woman he knows he loves. She is as much a part of this game as her brothers. Sooner or later, one of them will call it to an end.  
‘My sister is dead,’ he growls.  
It seems nobody has any response to that. They all stare at him, realising that they have probably pushed him too far. After a few moments, Sansa gets to her feet, her chair scraping noisily on the stone floor.  
‘Brothers,’ she says, her voice surprisingly strong, ‘would you bear a message back to the Isle?’  
Sandor stares at her, his expression unpleasant.  
Brother Albert steps forward once again. ‘Gladly, my Lady.’  
‘Tell them I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long. There has been so much to do here. As you can see, Winterfell is a place of much need at the moment… and I am the one who should be here to help. I have wanted to return every day-’  
Her voice catches, then, and she pauses.  
‘I am sorry… just tell them I will be back as soon as I can. Will you do that?’  
Sandor speaks. ‘And your sweetheart?’ he says, twisting the word to make it sound like something filthy, ‘what message for him?’  
‘That I love him,’ she says, ‘and I have longed to see him again.’   
Sansa sinks to her seat. Rickon has the grace to look embarrassed.  
‘I have a message for the man, too,’ Brandon says, his voice bold and clear. ‘We wish him no ill will. We want to see our sister happy. So, were he to come here and approach us, face to face, and ask for Sansa’s hand in marriage - well. We would look favourably on him. And I don’t think our sister would refuse him - would you, Sansa?’  
Those blue eyes turn to Sandor once more. He feels something inside his guts give way. She shakes her head slowly. And offers him a smile.  
Brother Albert is already heading towards the door. Sandor bows to take his leave, and turns.   
He manages five paces towards the door before he stops. He starts again - two more steps. The door is just a few more paces away. He stands there for what feels like the whole of the long summer, thinking of her and what has taken place here, this game of hearts and minds, this intrigue, this sport, and the fact that he and Sansa have, in some way, been tested.   
The guards stare at him and he stares back, then looks between them to the open doorway. It’s a good door, solid, someone has taken a long time to make it strong, to make it secure for the Chamber of the Council of the North. He isn’t fond of the cold, himself. He wasn’t keen on Winterfell the last time he was here, despite the hot springs that warm the walls of the keep, fighting a losing battle against the wind and the snow outside - he’d not enjoyed it. But maybe that was because he was guarding that little shit, Joffrey. The chill up here, north of the Twins, seeps into your very soul and turns you to ice if you let it. He’s a man of the south, he grew up on Casterly Rock where the stone is warm under your feet even when the sun has gone behind a cloud. That’s of no consequence. He won’t be going back there, in any case. Home isn’t where you were born; it turns out home isn’t a place at all. It’s something deeper than that.  
 _It’s not about where you are. It’s about who you’re with._  
He thinks: Winterfell is a good a place to end his days as any other. If they put him to the sword now, at least he will die knowing Sansa Stark loves him.  
He turns around to face them, takes several strides towards the platform, trying not to limp. That wouldn’t look good. And he wants to give them no advantage.  
‘Brother? Was there something else?’ Rickon asks.  
Sandor looks from one of them to the next. Brandon is smiling, as if he knows what’s coming. Sansa is staring, eyes wide, fingers gripping the arms of the chair again.  
Sandor clears his throat.  
‘I’m here to ask Sansa if she will be my wife,’ he says.  
For a moment there is a stunned silence, then Sansa cries out and leaps to her feet.


End file.
